The Christian Journal for Global Health is an underappreciated source of interesting articles and original research. I wanted to highlight a recent article reflecting on the Ebola crisis and the risk taken by health professionals (both African and non-African) to treat patients. The author concludes that fulfilling a Christian vision for health requires sacrifice and risk on the part of people who do have wealth and power:
Our vision of medicine, then, must encompass larger questions of justice within and between nations and economies, and acknowledge the bitterly ironic fact that, despite the scattered generosity of Western nations, the net flow of money and expertise (including trained doctors and nurses) is from the majority world to the West.22,23 Once again, medicine is not quarantined from bigger questions of justice and our responsibilities in a globalised world: any legitimate reflection on Christianity and medicine needs to come to grips with these broader question, and so, too, must our practice.
I wrote more about a Christian vision for health (nationally) here and the question of risk and missions here.