Elias Hakalehto, PhD, Adj. Prof.
Microbiologist, Biotechnologist
CEO and inventor, Finnoflag Oy, Kuopio, Finland (1993- )
Founder of the Environmental Section (1983) of the Student Unionof Helsinki University
An Alumnus of the University College London, U.K. (BiochemicalEngineering)
Vice President (Europe and Africa), International Society ofEnvironmental Indicators
Lifetime Fellow Member, International Society of Development and Sustainability (Japan)
(Published on the 15th of June, 2023)
Healthcare Palaces and Reflections of Infections
The healing systems should be operable, but they cannot cover everything. Being part of the society and economy makes them vulnerable from the point of patient care. In Finland, social and healthcare management(“sote”) reform is ongoing and to be implemented. Understandably, any human system cannot be faultless or complete. Therefore, an avenue of improvement needs to be included in every entirety of the solution.
In Nature, all parts seek their own best, the optimal gain of their kind, and ultimately, the benefits of the ecosystem as a whole. This is comparable to the common good in human societies but is of different measures. – We also think that our modern technologies, structures, traffic, medical care, education, and almost any life sector are more advanced or developed than ever before.
However, sarcastically it is possible to claim that if valued by the consequences, our modern culture is not so much advanced by several measures. For instance, pollution and waste problems have ever increased. Forest fires, floods and desertification hit record magnitudes, and so quickly does the carelessness. There are growing numbers of cast-outs of healthcare. If some more sensitive or caring persons lose their hope,could it be considered their weakness? Would it be rather the weakness of the system in front of an inevitable crisis? Does it reflect our massive collective incapability to cope with the issues of our modern times?
How can we feel proud of the technological advancements if they are widely misused and not applied to prevent disasters or catastrophes? Or to improve patient care and security? Technologies are there, but they need to be used promptly. This makes society suffer, not to mention the individual suffering.
Most alarmingly, similar thinking of the nonchalant kind has sneaked into many areas of our communities from where it should be kept out. Clinical care quickly pushes individual health issues further in time or to others. Or to move into multi-failures on a personal level. What needs to improve is moving backwards or worsening if it cannot be worked on. In theory, it is easy to support avoiding such events. But although there is highlycompetent personnel in service, the flaks of systematic resistance of real chance could cause a spiralling process.
To “take the cat on the table”, urinary tract infections (UTI), for example, are among the most common disorders harassing about 300.000 people in Finland annually. Some 10% of the cases are dangerous or life-threatening, quickly spreading into pyelonephritis and other complications. – The causative agents of UTI diseases are most often bacteria. Their cells could divide once every 20 minutes. Correspondingly a relatively mild infection of 1000 bacterial cells in millilitres could fast, in three hours, proceed into a more severe issue of about 250.000 cells per ml. Theoretically, the liquid would be a broth of 100 million cells if the treatment is notstarted in another three hours. Thus, in microbiological healthcare, time is both healing and money.
During infective communication or media policies, communicable diseases, or unsolved contaminations, we must resolve actions to keep the patients and the system healthy. There are thousands and thousands of researchers working hard in their laboratories and millions of patients amid the crisis of their lives.
In a true democracy, the general healthcare system, whether run by society or private enterprises, has to earn citizens’ confidence. It should be trusted like the old-time community physicians or family doctors who would go after the suddenly sickening patients anywhere, on cold winter days or nightless summer nights, whether it rains cats and dogs or pours thick snowstorms. They would see the sick patient with care and cure in mind, with sisu.
During the current situation with myriads of complications in healthcare, in the aftermath of various lifestyle complications, and following any new epidemics or pandemics, we need continuous innovation. In any case, the citizens deserve the best possible treatment. And diagnostic methods that are serving them fast enough. – The most expensive period during patient care episodes is when it is unknown what is the matter with a patient.
The ecosystems of health, science and this planet are comparable. At least in coherent situations, they are. It is a matter of heart,intuition and pure thinking about how we meet the red alerts.
Do we want to look down to dumped rivers, lakes or seas? Or to the eroded or polluted soil, the corrupted ecosystem, the muddy pits on lands deserted by man, where birds and animals are searching for clean water or breathing toxic smoke? Where fishes and other water creatures are deprived of adequate oxygen. Or do we ultimately wish to lift our heads, to look ahead to the horizon, at the clear skies?
