In our new project “Medical Care for All – Methods, knowledge and action competence on global injustice in medical care using the example of the Corona Pandemic” we dedicate ourselves to the entanglements of colonial and racist continuities in the field of medicine. In addition, we want to make recommendations for action / demands and resistant perspectives of BIPOC’s and allies visible. To this end, in 2023 we will network with experts, research together and create educational materials. In 2024, we would like to present these materials to an interested public and test the content and methods within test and pilot workshops and evaluate their use.
The goal is to use the educational materials created in the project and subsequent workshops to sensitize medical professionals who travel to the Global South or work here with refugees/BIPoCs to the problem of racism in medicine and to provide them with alternative options for action.
Development education on unequal treatment of people in medicine: starting from the Corona Pandemic, many historical continuities can be shown, for example how the Global South has always served as a field of experimentation for medicines or how Western medical professionals act as white saviors. White doctors and medical students travel to the Global South and are sometimes sent there as experts on missions in which they overestimate their personal competencies out of internalized dominance. This can sometimes result in immense and sometimes fatal damage if the medical group in question goes on missions that do not correspond to their actual competence and level of training. The training of medical personnel, especially those from the Global North involved in development policy, is inadequately tailored to missions in the Global South. An example of this is the standardization of medical services (keyword: skin cancer) for white people. This poses a threat to the health of non-white people (not only) in the Global South. We want to sensitize people to these and other topics with educational offers on the topic of Medicine for All! and show alternative possibilities for action.
The project runs from June 2023 – December 2024. For more information: kirschbaum[ÄT]glokal[DOT]org
The project is funded by Engagement Global with financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), as well as from budget funds of the State of Berlin – Landesstelle für Entwicklungszusammenarbeit.