The final countdown towards achieving 2030 Agenda

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Mr. Mirza Zain Baig is a 3rd Year MBBS student in Nawaz Sharif Medical College, Gujrat and a member of IFMSA, Pakistan. He is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writers and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

The sum of changes provoked by Covid-19 is unprecedented for it affected people of every class from all walks of life around the world, with far-reaching consequences. For instance, my precious moments of university days are being withered while sitting in my room.

We have to evolve now by learning from our mistakes and converting threats into opportunities.  It is based on hard reality that all countries are facing shortage of testing kits, PPEs as well as intensive care beds and other life-saving machinery.

Even the developed countries have failed miserably and are still struggling on this front. This pandemic shall serve as a wake-up call to the world; a call to prioritize health. Considerable financial and technological investments need to be made in the Health Sector because apparently, there is prevalence of injustice and unequal distribution of resources.

Facilities should be expanded to the extent where healthcare becomes easily accessible to every human being irrespective of his/her socioeconomic status. Especially in these days, there must be easy access to vaccination for everyone. 

SDGs (Sustainable development goals) for 2030 can only be possible if we start to pay attention and raise awareness among public. All the goals like eradication of poverty, water sanitation, clean energy, peace and prosperity are important for human development. 

For 2030 we also have to work on training Healthcare workers. We need to make sure our healthcare workers have all the skills and modern expertise required to tackle situations and crises, the kind of which we’re dealing with right now. Plenty of research is also required in this field.

Mental Health is also an issue worth mentioning. Since these are extraordinary times, mental illnesses are highly likely to be a by-product of this horrific pandemic. We need to an achieve a Health system capable enough of providing affordable and approachable psychological help to those suffering from mental disorders.
While we may have suffered way more than we expected at the hands of Covid-19, we sure have learned a lot too.

We now know how unexpected in nature life truly is, with us being totally unaware of what might happen in the next few hours, or days or weeks. The best we can do is to prepare ourselves for every possible situation to the best of our abilities.

And the sole, most important thing that we realized about our health care system from this crisis is that it needs a major upgrade. We have to increase its capacity. We need to make sure we’re not under-equipped to provide services we promise.

Furthermore, we need to re-organize our goals and priorities and focus on the things that are important, expend our energies and resources in the right direction so that at least we are prepared for any doom that might be awaiting us in the future.

About the author

Mirza Zain Baig is a 3rd Year MBBS student in Nawaz Sharif Medical College, Gujrat and a member of IFMSA, Pakistan. He decided to opt medical profession after watching the season “HOUSE MD” in his school life. He loves writing articles and taking part in extracurricular activities. Furthermore, he firmly believes that medical community can play a key role in spreading awareness among the public.