A Focus on Cancer in Trinidad nursing essay

A Focus on Cancer in Trinidad

The majority of health care services offered in Trinidad is government funded. Each year new district health facilities are built and existing ones are renovated and upgraded all without a critical evaluation of the existing health needs. As a result health care facilities are regionalized and centralized in more urban areas.

To a large extent this serves the purpose of achieving economies of scale (Schuurman et al. 2006). There is research that certainly hypothesizes that there is a positive relation between health services volume and better health care due to expertise and more resources being available in regionalized and centralized health facilities (Simunovic et al. 1999).

Conversely there are questions about whether centralization is in fact the positive it appears to be (Wexler 1999). It is an obvious disadvantage to persons who require access to acute health services regularly and have problems travelling to the health facilities.

GIS can be used to study the spatial distribution of healthcare facilities and in epidemiology studies. By studying them together there is the potential for highlighting optimal places for new facilities and placement of specialized facilities.

This study seeks to use GIS to determine:

Which villages/towns have the highest rates of cancer?

Where can we place additional district health facilities to reduce the strain on hospitals that have cancer treating facilities?

Are there environmental contributing factors in the areas with high numbers of cancer patients?

One of the hallmarks of GIS – mapping – is particularly useful in clearly showing local patterns in disease and any associated geographical factors (Wilkinson et al. 1998).

By answering these questions this project seeks to address the problem of efficient use and application of resources towards the goal of improving the quality of health care given to cancer patients.

Certainly economic resource saving comes to mind for patients however resources can also speak to public education and awareness campaigns and human resources available.

By identifying areas that have high rates of a particular disease we can seek provide additional services in that area. This can take the form of a new hospital or increasing the emphasis on that disease in the district health facilities. Over the long term answ…………………………………

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