Along with the development of technology, the living standards of the human being is now being considered as a priority. People tend to pay more attention to their health than in the past when there are severe diseases that can be cured now, such as cancer and tuberculosis. However, this situation does only exist in rich people’s lives, as poor people sometimes do not even have a chance to win over diseases because of poverty.

It is undeniable that poverty affects our health. Many people think that poverty does not affect health; it only affects people’s clothes, food, and accommodation. Nevertheless, poverty has more negative impact than what they think.

Here are some of the ways that poverty can affect your health:

Medical Expenses

Rich people can go to better hospitals to have a general check-up and cure for the diseases. These hospitals usually provide patients with higher service quality and better treatment, more developed equipment, and more professional doctors.

Moreover, these hospitals are places where there is a higher chance to cure severe and rare diseases like poliomyelitis or HIV. However, patients have to pay an expensive price if they want to go to these hospitals; poor people do not even have a chance to set their foot on the entrance gate of these expensive hospitals.

Poverty can also prevent people from paying for medicine and medical care; many of them can only go to a hospital and wait for their death. Medicines are usually extremely expensive, especially the ones for severe diseases. When they cannot buy these medicines, there is no other way for them to escape from the illness.

Furthermore, having a large amount of money can also help people to have surgery to cure their serious sicknesses like brain tumors or organ transplantation. There are millions of children in the world per year who die because there is no money to do the surgery; there is only one way for them to overcome the illness: praying to God.

Not only expensive hospitals and complicated surgeries, but money can also provide patients with a chance to go to foreign countries which have more developing technologies to cure their diseases. Foreign countries such as the USA or UK usually have the expertise and highly skilled doctors with more modern apparatus.

Nevertheless, expenses for these treatments are extremely high when patients also have to pay for the flight, hotel, and hospital fees when they stay in foreign countries.

Health Insurance

Poor people usually cannot pay for any health insurance; the price for health insurance is higher than other insurances. People who buy this health insurance are the ones who have a stable job, and their companies will usually pay for this insurance based on the labor contract. However, poor people regard health insurance as an unnecessary thing and a waste of money.

In fact, in mountainous areas, health insurance is not popular. Many people do not even know about it and know that health insurance can help them to pay for medical expenses, so they will not buy it as they think they will never have to go to the hospital; they feel buying health insurance is useless and wasteful.

“In 2006, more than 26.260 Americans aged 25 to 64 died because they lacked health insurance — more than twice as many as were murdered, Families in the USA said.”In the seven years from 2000 to 2006, there is an estimated 162. 700 Americans died because of a lack of health insurance.” These numbers tell us an undeniable fact: we need to have health insurance.

Food and Clothes

When people are poor, they do not have enough money to buy food to eat. There are thousands of children who have to pick the food on the street up or search for the food in the rubbish bins; these food are not safe and can be unhealthy so that people who eat them may be poisoned and need to go to the hospital.

5,678,050 people died from hunger this year, 445,700 people who died from hunger so far in August, 76,962 people since the beginning of this week, and 2,900 people so far today. These numbers change every second because every second someone will die from hunger.

In addition, there is a large number of people who do not have enough warm clothes to wear in the cold weather, they have to walk barefoot on the ground that is covered by snow, wear only one shirt during the winter. “Hypothermia can develop in as little as five minutes in temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit if people are not dressed properly and have exposed skin, especially the scalp, hands, fingers, and face. At 30 below zero, hypothermia can set in in about 10 minutes.” And people can die from hypothermia just in under one hour.

Jobs

Poor people have to work extremely hard to make money and they usually are blue-collar workers who have to work in a harsh environment and do hard work such as miners, workers in construction sites. These jobs require people to work in extreme conditions like too hot weather or having no light; they may need to work at extremely dangerous places like a mine.

These conditions affect a big part of the workers’ health, they may have some diseases or sometimes die because of the harsh environments. For example, Samsung has to change their workers every year as people cannot work there for more than a few years because they may have some severe illnesses when they have to work with toxic technology and equipment.

Poor people need to work hard from early morning until midnight because they need to earn more money to feed themselves and their families. There are many people who die because of working too hard for a long time without relaxing.

At Project Sprouts, we realize that we can not solve all the problems of poverty in a situation like this. But we can seek to make a difference in the lives of needy children by giving them school supplies and encouraging them to continue their education; we can give them winter coats, boots, and blankets to help them stay warm during the cold winter months.

Project Sprouts would love to have you be a part of our community and help us to help worthy children in North Vietnam. We cannot solve all the world’s problems, but we can do our part to help poor kids grow by giving school supplies, winter coats, boots, and other supplies.

You can find out more about Project Sprouts by clicking here or go to our give now page to donate by clicking here. As we are a grassroots organization, all funds go to help those in need.

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