TRANSCRIPT
In January, the World Health Organisation launched an appeal for $2.5 billion dollars, to shore up its emergency fund.
That money would become desperately needed in the months ahead, wi th an earthquake in Turkiye and Syria killing thousands and leaving scores of others in a precarious position.
There were fears of disease outbreaks as people struggled to live outside or in shelters and infrastructure began to be rebuilt.
Deputy Director for the Office of Humanitarian Affairs, Ghada Eltahir Mudawi, said the situation in Syria was especially precarious because of sanctions, imposed amid an ongoing civil war.
“As we've seen 20 percent of over 600 communities that have been assessed, they have no access to health care as we speak. Winter conditions are very high. Cholera, over 47,000 cases are already there, and access to quality drinking water is not the case. The health system is overwhelmed.”
Later in the year, a similar nightmare began to unfold in Gaza.
Israel sought to eliminate Hamas following the militant group's deadly raid on October 7.
Hospitals in Gaza, like the major centre of Al-Shifah, were the target of the Israeli military.
They alleged Hamas were hiding weapons and hostages inside, claims that Hamas denied.
Aid organisations reported that hospital systems were near collapse, as thousands of displaced people took shelter in them, and a lack of fuel and food stretched medical services to the limit.
British Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta, who spent weeks working for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza City, said the brunt of the impact was being felt by women and children.
“During my time at Shifa Hospital, it became apparent that 40 to 45% of all the wounded were going to be children, that there were the primary target of the bombing was people's residential homes and that we were getting multigenerational and patients from the same families in each air raid.”
The impact on health services was even felt in nearby Lebanon.
Marjayoun Hospital director Dr Mounes Klakesh said that his facility was one of dozens in Lebanon that had already been struggling to cope in peacetime, because of the country's economic collapse in 2019.
“The fear is definitely there. But this is our destiny. Our job is to be here and to keep going, depending on our capabilities and what is available to us, and hopefully the situation won't get worse.”
Apart from war, the other major concern fuelling an uptick in health worries has been climate change.
The World Health Organisation reported an increase in malaria infections this year, because of humanitarian crises, rising temperatures, increased humidity and more rainfall.
The WHO's global malaria programme director Dr Daniel Ngamije said more funding was required for prevention and treatment efforts.
“Given current trends, continuing with the status quo will only lead us further off track... We need to step up financing. In 2022 alone, there was a global malaria funding gap of 3.7 billion US dollars.”
Health experts repeated their concerns to world leaders at COP28 in Dubai, telling the gathering that there had already been a four-fold increase in heat-related deaths because of climate change, and they were expecting millions more people to be impacted negatively.
Canadian doctor Yseult Gibert said not many people realise that the climate crisis is also a health crisis.
“It affects you with air pollution. Of course, that's what people might think of right away. So your lungs' pressure cardiovascular system, cholesterol vessels, your heart. But it will also affect the rise of infectious disease, more antimicrobacterial resistance. And of course, all the refugees, climate refugees that are going to be insaluber condition, food security. If there's no food and we all starve, it's not also going to be great for our health. So there's multiple ways that climate change affects our health physically and mentally as well. There's climate anxiety, of course, and there's the mental effects also of being, for example, victim of the natural disasters.”
Meanwhile, New Zealand was making the news this year for its shock decision to repeal anti-smoking laws.
Cigarette sales in New Zealand to anyone born after 2008 were to have been banned from next year in a bid to stop young people from taking up smoking.
But the country's new right leaning government decided not to proceed with that after all.
Health experts and campaigners like Ben Youdan, from the Action for Smokefree 2025 group, panned the decision.
“That was a world-leading policy that was going to save thousands and thousands of lives. So it feels a tremendous cost to be in power to give up that bill because it’s just going to prolong the death and the disease that’s being caused by smoked tobacco.”
Plenty of other health related stories also got a healthy amount of attention in the news.
Like a project to give information about the genes of half a million people to scientists around the world to drive the discovery of new treatments for disease, which could help us understand how illness progresses in populations.
An international study found an experimental drug could slow progression of memory and thinking problems in patients, giving new hope for the treatment of Alzheimers.
And in Germany, Dominika Frycz became the world's first recipient of a medically approved 3D printed bionic arm.
“It's crazy! It feels like I have never had anything missing. Also, in general, to be able to work with both hands, I could never imagine it. I couldn't even imagine it when I saw other people doing it. And it's quite overwhelming now. Amazing!”
But some stories have been overlooked.
Among them are the issues facing transgender people in the United States to access health and aged care.
A new wave of new state laws have been enacted this year limiting transgender people’s rights across the country.
In Florida, the law has made it difficult for people like 57 year old Andrea Montanez to keep accessing hormone therapy.
But Michael Adams from a support organisation called SAGE has said there are also concerns about the readiness of nursing homes and health facilities to meet the needs of trans seniors.
“Among the challenges that we see facing transgender elders and older adults are discrimination and lack of access to welcoming health care and welcoming elder services. We see discrimination at– high levels of discrimination in housing, we see higher levels of poverty, higher levels of health challenges and health conditions, all of which creates a greater need for support, services and care.” ]]
