Refugees could use Bitcoin’s blockchain technology to access health records and get treatment in migrant camps, health experts said.
Migrants often lack ID and medical records when they arrive at refugee camps, meaning they must be treated by doctors with no knowledge of their medical history or face the same painful examinations many times.
Displaced people also face a struggle to get a Covid-19 vaccine, partly because of the lack of data on migrant groups.
But blockchain, a form of digital ledger which can be accessed from computers around the world and is notably used as a record of Bitcoin transactions, could be adapted as a medical history logbook in order to supply the missing records.
The lack of a valid ID is a barrier to receiving health care
The proposal was put forward by Paulo Rupino da Cunha and Tiago Nunes of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, in a seminar on migrant health organised by the M8 Alliance of health experts.
Mr da Cunha said medical data was often inaccessible because it was locked away in hospitals and other institutions or might have been destroyed in war.
“Even if you have the data, it is not the first thing you pack if you are running for your life,” he said.
“The lack of this information hinders health care during the journey. The medical data generated at one camp may not be available at the next camp or to humanitarian teams that refugees meet during the journey.”
In addition to lacking medical records, migrants may not have any ID at all which may prevent them from accessing health care, Mr da Cunha said.
“ID may be left behind. It is easily damaged or lost during a hard journey and a stolen ID may be of value for criminal purposes,” he said.
“The lack of a valid ID is a barrier to receiving health care even if migrants and refugees are entitled to it.”
Mr da Cunha said a blockchain medical record would be time-stamped and cryptographically locked so that the patient’s history of treatment could not be altered.
It could then be “automatically replicated anywhere”, meaning it could be accessed by health workers in any camp where migrants might find themselves.
Refugees could grant doctors access to their records with a retina or fingerprint scan, he said.
If successful, such a system would prevent migrants from having to undergo painful and expensive repeat exams, the seminar co-arranged by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was told.
A pilot project in Jordan used blockchain to manage humanitarian aid transactions at refugee camps inhabited by Syrians.
Blockchain is best known for underpinning Bitcoin, the virtual currency founded in 2009. But other possible uses have been highlighted in recent years.
Experts last year mooted its potential use in elections as a secure way of tallying votes, meaning ballots could be cast online.
It has also been proposed as a way of storing property records, including in politically unstable countries where land ownership may be uncertain.
More on refugees
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Three ways to limit your social media use
Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.
1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.
2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information.
3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
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Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
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