Link More at the link. This is truly amazing, and considering how much sunlight that most places in on the African continent receive, this would be a wonderful and relatively inexpensive thing to set up...or even to install permanently on the hospital buildings. According to the article, the first hospital that used these saw infant and childbirth fatalities fall 70 percent within the year!
this is one of those things where one of those guys who keeps saying "I make too much money' ought to just pony up a billion or so to underwrite the supply of these for every hospital in need.
That would be nice in theory, but I think there's something to be said for letting the word get out slowly and letting it happen organically. This is something that each hospital can do for itself if the personnel are really motivated. It would be easier to have somebody just write a check, but then as the saying goes, "what we gain too easily, we esteem too lightly." I would think there would be more pride and appreciation from making the effort to go small scale. Just my two cents.
Indeed. Much of the continent has the perfect climate for it! I have mixed feelings about that. When my sister does mission's work in Africa. One of the things they do is give out mosquito nets. They've started charging (a pittance) for them because when they just give them away, most people place no value on them and don't even use them. When they charge the pittance (way below cost), they are valued and used. I say that I have mixed feelings because the people in these hospitals would see the value of the kits and they are more highly educated, but at the same time I see free things being undervalued in the west even among educated people. Yup.
Considering that a pregnant woman in Nigeria has a 1 in 36 chance of dying in childbirth (versus a 1 in 2800 here) , I somehow think that appreciation won't be much of an issue.
Then the whole concept of charitable grants is flawed? I'm just saying that private enterprise often succeeds where bureaucratic governments stumble (as illustrated by the OP) and that folks who are obsessed with giving more to the government would be better served to find private enterprise accomplishing good things and magnify those efforts.
so charge them a small fee that wouldn't have been enough otherwise (which they don't have to even know. if each unit costs $3,000 to make and deliver, then charge them $300 and accomplish both goals.
Some are: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for example. And Richard Branson's got his Virgin Green Fund which, at the moment, is focused on renewable fuels, but solar might make an interesting sideline. More of a problem in large areas of Africa is access. Unless you're going to deliver materials by helicopter (expensive and unreliable), you'll need roads.
Where did I say or imply that? This is a wonderful idea and I hope every hospital that needs one of these things gets one. However, I have come to believe that simply swooping in and dropping gifts on people is not necessarily the best way to improve things. Combating disease is a different matter where mass innoculations are a great way to make a dent, especially since it's often a one-shot (literally) situation. Helping people feel that they have some skin in the game and have done something to pull themselves up instead of waiting for Superman to deliver may be a better course. Given the corruption that accompanies many of the large-scale relief efforts in Africa, going smaller may actually help more people.
Considering this is an area where the terrorist group Boku Haram (modern/western education is forbidden [by God]) has decent support among the population I think it entirely possible that some/many people there could be unappreciative of Western help.
Why not give support to the Christian south and let the Islamists of Northern Nigeria fester in their backwardsness? At least some of the people/country would be getting help and see their living conditions improved. I kind of like Mike's idea of making locals put some skin in the game but the problem with that is often it is trying to squeeze blood from a rock because if there is no money for them to give simply demanding they put in money won't amount to anything.
...and where did I say that they should cough up money? I am talking about some sort of process where people can express their need and show they will use the stuff properly. How about setting up a system where the hospital makes an application that requires them to show the need and that the device won't sit in a box or get sold on the black market. Again, I"m not for trying to squeeze money out of desperately poor people.
OK, sorry, when you used the term "have some skin in the game" I took that as meaning money as that term is often used to justify raising taxes on the poor in this country. Perhaps I misunderstood.
Interesting story. The boy recently did a project for school. To generate enough Kw for an American 1500 SF house for a family of 4 would require about 45 of the Samsung PV panels (most efficient on the planet) and a bank of 8 24 Volt batteries. Amazing to see what much less can do.
Africa's infrastructure the way it was setup due to colonialism was for resources not transportation in a real sense.
Why don't they just invent the fucking glass window and put them all around a room and use direct solar lighting?
This is just one example of using what you've got as far as alternative energy is concerned...solar panels are pretty cost-effective in most places in California, which see as much or possibly less sun than places like Zimbabwe or Nigeria. One legitimate concern with global modernization is the demand for oil in developing countries, but if someone were smart, they'd find a way to incorporate renewable energy and products into new infrastructure from the get go.
Also, it's an assumed consensus that random passers-by don't want to see women squeezing babies out of their coochies.
I'm trying to remember the details of this ... I heard something on NPR a while back about a program that involves getting modern toilet facilities into an impoverished area somewhere with extremely poor public hygiene. They initially tried just giving them away, and people didn't use them. Then they changed tactics and got local entrepreneurs to sell them after buying them at an extremely reduced rate, and the program started to work.
They just popped them out and accepted women would die in incredibly high numbers during child birth.
Nothing against you, but that's along the same line of logic as people complaining about seat belt and helmet laws just because they made it to adulthood without getting in a car crash or busting their head open. But I would assume that until about WWI at the minimum, when more women started giving birth at hospitals, childbirth was most often than not a crap shoot as to whether one or the other or both would survive. There's so many possible ways a pregnancy can turn life-threatening that we in the Western world don't think about anymore...things like breech births or vaginal tearing or even the general wear and tear of multiple pregnancies close together. Like the article mentioned, this is a life-saver for those times when shit goes south and they've already got the mother prepped for surgery (or in the middle of one when the lights go out).
