Telemedicine as a tool for improving human security - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 161

increased service tends to have an ad hoc character, and the changes are usually
never integrated into a 'national service' or regional framework that would
better assist access for people, particularly in more remote areas. This may
be related to the nature of the state's responsibility for the actual service
being delivered, and the way this responsibility must be transformed into
a national and regional system of laws and financial systems. The questions
are: how effectively can telemedicine address the gap in access to information
for patients, and how can it support the effectiveness of practitioners in more
isolated areas?
Conclusion
Health security is crucial to human, state and regional security. Populations in
the Arctic are subject to widely different health threats and concerns (rapidly
increasing diabetes, tuberculosis and suicide rates among Inuit populations,
significantly reduced life expectancy for men as well as excessive alcohol and
tobacco consumption in Russia, and not least aging populations across the
Arctic (World Bank 2008; Health Canada 2012)). Healthcare access and
healthcare personnel are crucially important for quality healthcare delivery,
which in turn affects both human and state security. Russia's potential as a
global power is weakened by poor health outcomes in its population (World
Bank 2008). The crucial role healthcare plays in security has been overlooked,
but fits well into the dialogue on security on societal, national and regional
levels. As Buzan et al. (1998) claimed in their seminal work Security: A New
Framework for Analysis , security is about existential threats. If we do not exist,
there is not much else to worry about. A state cannot exist without a popula-
tion; a population will cease to exist without adequate access to healthcare.
This is true for all states, regions and parts of the world.
If governments across the Arctic can better integrate telemedicine into the
way that healthcare is organized, telemedicine could increase access to and
delivery of healthcare. Telemedicine can also cross territorial borders since
its technology does not stop at borders. Access to healthcare depends on how
governments prefer to organize their health system. So it is the organiza-
tional model that has to change if access is to be increased by international
cooperation. Telemedicine is just one of many tools that can be used in an
organizational change to increase access to healthcare and therefore health
security in isolated Arctic communities.
References
Buzan, B. (1990) The European Security Order Recast: Scenarios for the Post-Cold War Era , London:
Pinter Publishers.
Buzan, B., Wæver, O. and de Wilde, J. (1998) Security: A New Framework for Analysis , London:
Lynne Rienner Publishers.