Disease Prevention and Treatment
December in the Rotary world is Disease Prevention and Treatment month.
My grandmother told me on many occasions that your health is everything. She probably was right. Many, if not most of us, take our health for granted. We are the lucky ones.
Yet, there are over 400 million people in the world who can’t afford or don’t have access to basic health care. We, in Rotary, believe good health care is everyone’s right.
Disease results in misery, pain and poverty. That is why preventing and treating disease is so important.
Rotary leads efforts both large and small. We set up temporary clinics, blood donation centers and training facilities in underserved communities struggling with outbreaks and health care access.
We design and build infrastructure that allows doctors, patients and governments to work together. Our members combat diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and, of course, polio.
Prevention is important. A focus on health education and bringing people in for routine hearing, vision and dental care is vital to this mission.
Disease does not prevent itself. Rotary educates and equips communities to stop the spread of life-threatening diseases. Rotary members have hundreds of health projects underway around the world at any given time.
The Rotary Foundation provides grants for projects and activities around the globe and in our own backyard.
The Foundation has given $65 million in grants to fight disease. There has been a 99.9% reduction in polio cases since the program started in 1985. This past July, the Rotary Foundation approved its largest global grant ever: $1.1 million to train health care workers in Liberia and provide equipment to a hospital ship that will serve the region.
Right here in our District 5340, these Rotary clubs make amazing things happen:
The Carlsbad club provides bone graft harvest equipment to assist Rotary volunteer surgeons to obtain bone to reconstruct cleft lip and palate deformities for children in Baja California.
The Del Mar club has a program that focus’s on maternal and child health care in Ethiopia by the training of trainers to save babies lives at the moment of birth.
The La Mesa club supports a disease prevention and treatment program by providing funding for Alexandra Ameida’s first year doctoral training in research to help improve access to heath care and treatment for individuals who are co-infected with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and are substance abusers.
This doctoral training will provide foundational, educational and research skills to help improve the lives of those in Brazil who are co-infected by HIV/AIDS and TB.
And, there is my club: Del Mar/Solana Beach. For years we have funded many projects in El Salvador. This project is in Molagrossa. There, people do not want to avail themselves of free medical services or are afraid of medical practices. By providing five (5) tons of free food at the medical clinic the people are now coming to the clinic for medical services.
Through Rotary’s disease prevention and treatment programs, we change the world for good. For the better.
Clarification:
In last week’s Musing we wrote about the Polio Plus Society and some of the perks in being in the society.
The bumper stickers actually read: Good Bye Polio Thanks Rotary. These bumper stickers can be purchased for $.27 per through the Del Mar Club’s website.