War may cause Russia to lose her best men in enormous numbers - already she has lost millions in soldiers and citizens – and the eugenic welfare of the empire, as of other empires, may suffer. Russia may lose ready-at-hand financial resources; Russia may lose a strip of territory which is enormous compared to Massachusetts but inconsiderable when compared to the area of which it was a part. Russia has lost much and may lose more.

But her gains will be great indeed. She will gain new national unity and new national ideals and new national associations with the outer world. In these Russia will have the opportunity to draw more benefit from the war than all her enemies and all her allies combined.

When regiment after regiment comes marching across the Field of Mars in the Russian capital, splendid men moving forward out of the winter mists with the swing, swing, swing of the Russian marching step, it is tempting to one's heart to beat in time with that swing, and for the breath of one's body to measure itself by the rhythm of the numbers. So the rhythm of the marching step and the unison of the singing express, I think, something of the new Russian spirit of national unity. When the Russian standing army was still in existence all this might have served to express the Army. But these men are reservists and men newly drafted; they express Russia.

These men could not express Russia if it were not for the war. They would not have been able to know so strong a national spirit. A year ago they could have expressed a certain Slav sense common to all, and each could have expressed the village, the canton, or the district from which he came; the national spirit, a year ago, had no such existence as it has today because a national spirit is spread very thinly in an empire where three-fourths of the people live peaceably and isolated in the country, where there are more than thirty acres for every living being, where the miles of railroad for each acre are fewer than in any other sovereignty, and where three persons out of every five cannot read or write. It is the war which knits the empire together.

Introduction

This chapter examines how the nation of Zambia in East Africa has adopted health policies that are modeled along the national health vision of “equity of access to, cost-effective and affordable health services, which is close to the family is possible.” The chapter argues that despite Zambia's national health vision rural residents in the country are still faced with major challenges in accessing healthcare services. The aftermath of these challenges is that there is still a higher rate of morbidity and mortality in the rural regions of Zambia. Even though primary health services in Zambia are free, analysis conducted reveals that one other healthcare delivery challenge in the country is the lack of timely access to emergency care for citizens living in rural regions that are more than 50 miles from urban cities. Therefore, most citizens suffer from impaired outcomes such as physical and emotional stress due to difficulties in receiving good and timely access to healthcare. In addition, the nation of Zambia also faces the challenges of a shortage of healthcare professionals as well as financial investment in its health system. Like many other African countries, Zambia also spends less than 10% of its gross domestic product on healthcare. Other challenges discussed in the chapter include inadequate infrastructure and equipment, and weaknesses in the supply of drugs and other medical items. These challenges negatively affect healthcare service delivery in Zambia, particularly in the rural communities, as well as the disadvantaged vulnerable population groups, such as women, children, and those who are disabled. Some policy recommendations are provided that could help the government of Zambia to accomplish more positive healthcare outcomes in the future.

Brief History of Zambia

The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country located between central Africa, eastern Africa, and southern Africa. It has boundaries with the Democratic Republic of Congo in the northwest, Angola in the east, and the Republic of Botswana in the south. The Republic of Zambia also has boundaries with Zimbabwe in the southeast, Tanzania in the northeast, and the Republic of Mozambique in the east. The origin of the people living in current-day Zambia could be traced to be descendants of those who inhabited in Great Rift Valley, which runs from the lower Zambezi River in southern Zambia to the headwaters of the Nile in Egypt between the fifth and sixth centuries (Roberts 1976; Lambert 2022; Lewis 1964).

This study concluded the ways in which women are excluded from education and from holding positions of power because of male domination across the globe. Therefore, women have limited access to public authority over their private lives. Furthermore, each theory of feminism discussed here has played a crucial role in the twenty-first century of feminist theorisation and politics, and together they constitute a source of inspiration for the future. I have described the basic exchange between feminism and Western philosophy that runs through these feminisms and their relationship. Where feminism will go from here is unclear, but the point is that feminism, by any name, is alive in academia and outside of it. Some older feminists feel discouraged by the younger generations’ seeming ignorance of or disregard for the struggles and achievements of the early movement. They see little progress (the pay gap has not significantly narrowed in 60 years) and are fearful that the new high-heeled, red-lipped college girls are letting go of hard-won gains. This, however, is not likely the case. There have always been feminisms in movements, not just one ideology, and there have always been tensions, points and counterpoints. The political, social and intellectual feminist movements have always been chaotic, multivalent and disconcerting, and let's hope they continue to be so; it's a sign that they are thriving. I concluded that economic classes, language of instructions and parental education patterns were the reinforcing elements for the women of Pukhtunkhwa to access higher education. The upper and upper-middle-class women were confident of continuing higher education if they wanted to. Women of Pukhtunkhwa preferred marriage over higher education. Career was not their priority or was the second option and even then only in the fields of medicine and teaching. If a choice between a career and higher education was available to them, they would choose higher education. It was surprising that the women in contemporary Pukhtunkhwa were happy to give all the decision-making power to their family men because a lack of training made them hesitant to decide their future. However, on the other hand, they do demand women-only educational institutions throughout Pukhtunkhwa.

More than twenty years after publishing Chéri, Colette continued to explore in Gigi (1944), the fundamental prohibition enabling the social contract, the incest taboo, and its ramifications for women's psychology in a changing world. Known for her critique of heterosexual love and marriage, she celebrates them here in a late anomalous novel and its romantic fantasy of an adolescent and an older father figure. Gigi in fact embeds Colette's exploration of the social contract and its prohibition in the narrative, enabling the reader to reflect on a young woman's decision to follow her desire. The author's foundational relationship with her first husband, Willy, is clearly one of the sources for the novel. While Gigi on its surface does not replay the events of Colette's life, I argue that it is an example of her invention of autofiction and thus of her contributions to modernism, as I will examine.

In the novel, fifteen-year-old Gigi raises questions about love with a womanizing thirty-three-year-old man in dialogue presented by a third-person limited narrator. The narrative's subtext has Colette setting out problems in and through a young woman's entanglement with the incest taboo. This donnée sets the dramatic stage for a deep exploration of social and gender conflicts waiting to be played out in a nineteenth-century jewel box of French corruption.

The novel's semblance of popular romance fiction misleads critics, biographers, and mainstream readers alike who conclude that, while entertaining, it is not worth serious attention. Jerry Aline Flieger, for instance, who has written the excellent analysis of Colette's autobiographical writing discussed in my preceding chapters and below in this one, does not mention the title. The fine biographer of the author, Judith Thurman, says that she wrote it while sick and bed-ridden in Nazi-occupied Paris as if to excuse her for having written an anomalous weak narrative capitulating to fantasy. She calls the novel “a delicious bagatelle,” mellow and nostalgic, with a fairy-tale ending. Earlier, in her introduction to Roger Senhouse and Patrick L. Fermor's translation of the novel, she writes: “Gigi—written in the bleakest months of World War II—is the best known [of her works] to English-speaking readers, somewhat unfortunately, if only because its promise of happiness so misrepresents Colette's view of love [Vincente Minnelli's film version is an important factor in making her known in the US].”

Snapshots from a Pandemic

In an increasingly globalised society, the COVID-19 pandemic, which occurred between 2020 and 2021, exerted a strong impact on many of the habits of social actors, forcing them to modify their mindset and behaviours, lifestyles and consumption patterns, sometimes radically (Kirk and Rifkin 2020). Indeed, the fears of the spread of the virus have led to significant changes in social life, impacting not only occupational and educational spheres but also leisure activities. From a strictly labour perspective, many companies have adopted remote working to ensure the well-being of their employees during a health emergency. This shift has led to a profound change in the traditional concept of the workplace, together with a remarkable increase in the use of digital communication technologies. Similarly, schools and universities adopted online education to limit the spread of COVID-19 virus: students of all ages had to adapt quickly to new learning methods based on digital platforms and virtual classrooms, demonstrating technological literacy and autonomous learning skills. Indeed, the resilience of many young people was evident as they embraced online education, finding innovative ways to engage in courses and maintain a sense of academic normalcy.

Due to restrictions imposed by national governments (Cambefort 2020), individuals have been compelled to move a wide range of activities from their usual outdoor settings into the confines of their homes, forcing them to adapt their daily routines to a radically changed reality; for instance, due to the closure of restaurants and restrictions on social activities, many people have developed new culinary habits, experimenting with baking, home cooking and meal preparation. Similarly, the enforcement of social distancing measures has resulted in a decrease in face-to-face social activities: virtual interactions through apps and digital platforms have become a common alternative for keeping in touch with relatives and friends, in an attempt to find new forms of ‘normality’ in the changing global scenario. Indeed, as Settersten et al. (2020, 2) pointed out, while the whole world was waiting for a medical solution, ‘the most effective remedy has been behavioral: physical distancing. It is this behavioral remedy that has immediately and significantly altered every domain of life – through restricted mobility and social interaction, voluntary or involuntary quarantines, lockdowns for whole populations, remote working and learning, or loss of work altogether’.

Russia and her people, achieving a new step toward progress in the midst of a seethe of war, cannot be understood without knowing Russia and her government and her people as they are today. Of the surprises to be found in the Empire, none is so great as that of the realization of misconceptions of Russia existing outside her borders, and especially in the United States.

When I came out of Russia, Englishmen and Americans flung at me six questions, and I found that by answering these questions which in the main concerned that which may be called news interest, I had sketched Russia as she is today, her Czar, her government, her people, and her awakening spirit. These were the six questions: Why did the Czar supplant the Grand Duke? Will Russia make a separate peace? Is the German influence strong? Will there be a revolution? Has the Russian army sufficient ammunition and sup-plies? Is Russia permeated by graft?

These were inevitable questions. They were asked of me by those who know that I have had opportunities to observe Russia in her trying moments, and that through official channels and a visit as a guest of the Russian General Staff, and as a wanderer in and out of Moscow and Petrograd, I would be able to tell something of Russia from behind the scenes. The answers to them involve much that is more significant and interesting than life in the trenches at an inactive winter front or salvos of artillery shot off to amuse and educate the rare American visitor.

Russia is an empire of contradictions. The difficulty with anything that is said about Russia is that at once it must be qualified. For instance, “The Russian people are suppressed; Russia is an autocracy.” It is true. But behold the apparent contradiction: nowhere more than in Russia is developed, in men or women, the sense of being individual; nowhere, certainly not in the United States, is there such a democracy of human feeling. Again: “Russia is a country of peasants; three-fourths of the Russians are agricultural people, who live scattered over vast areas.” But Russia is not a country of peasants in the sense that the peasants of Russia are expressed in the Russia which we know.

Introduction

The continent of Africa is considered to be the second largest and second most populous on earth with an estimated population in 2020 of 1,340,598,147 (1.3 billion) people (Human Development Report 2020; World Bank 2023). It is estimated that the African continent's population constitutes over 14% of the world's human population (World Alas, 2020). The continent is also home to 55 recognized independent countries or states. According to the United Nations Human Development Report (2022), Africa also has nine territories and two de facto independent states with very little recognition. Western Sahara is supposed to be the 55th nation in the African continent but its statehood has still been disputed by Morocco. It should be noted however that despite the predicament of its statehood status Western Sahara is a member state of the African Union. In addition, South Sudan is Africa's newest independent state. It gains its independence on July 9, 2011 (Infoplease 2020). Although the African Union was established in July 2002, with the purpose of helping Africa's nations to secure a pragmatic and betterfunctioning democracy, create an effective common market; sustainable economy, and human rights, as well as end the multiple conflicts in the continent, the organization has not been able to accomplish most of its goals (African Development Bank 2023; Ake 1996; USAID Africa Report 2020).

The African continent is endowed with many mountains, hills, the Sahara, and Sahel deserts. It also contains many famous rivers such as the Nile River, which is the world's longest, the river Niger, and the Congo River (African Development Bank 2023; Human Development Index Report 2020). After the colonial period and the independence of many African countries from various European countries, most of the newly created nations were plagued with ineffective governments, leaders that were dictators, civil wars, coup d’états, ethnic conflicts, and religious insurgencies (Ayana et al. 2023; Dibie 2022, 2017; Hopkins et al. 2009). In addition to the above predicaments, the continent experiences various unfavorable environmental and humanitarian conditions such as famine, drought, flood, and poverty. According to Infoplease (2020), these political, humanitarian, and environmental conditions often lead to displaced refugees, vulnerable forced labor and sexual exploitation of girl children and women, sex trade, inter-ethnic abduction, and religious insurgencies.

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the effects of the pandemic that have affected the social system in all its components since March 2020. The crisis has settled within a ‘permanent state of crisis’ that can be read as an inescapable condition of contemporary society. The unpredictability of certain events, with all that this entails, characterises the system of complex societies, which are in themselves inevitably risky, even when they strive to function according to apparently rational rules. The processes of globalisation stress this character and imply the acceptance of living and sharing a common human condition increasingly exposed to uncertainty and contingency. Although sociology in general (and the sociology of risk in particular) reflects on these problematic aspects, here we have chosen to refer to the analyses of two sociologists well known for their powerful humanistic perspective and biographically acquainted with crises, wars and epidemics of the past century: Edgar Morin and Franco Ferrarotti.

Their theoretical reflection is the background to two empirical researches that I conducted on the pandemic phenomenon: the first, a qualitative/visual type carried out during the first lockdown in the city of Rome, resulted in the documentary entitled ‘If not now when’, that bears witness to the dystopian aspects and social and urban exceptionalism; the second, currently in progress, is an in-depth study of the first and is the result of the national project ‘Inhabiting uncertainty’. In the latter, a research unit in Rome has been focusing on surveying the youth response to the condition of uncertainty, dedicating a special concern to the emotional, relational and imagination spheres. The voices of scholars and young people interviewed who participated in the research converge on a need that also represents a social objective: re-founding our way of being in the world and designing, through imaginative processes, different ways of inhabiting uncertainty and crisis.

Rethinking the Human Condition from the Pandemic Crisis

Pandemic, war conflict, climate emergency and economy: these are the four crises of the post-global age that accompany the great adventure of mankind and feed such a deep sense of uncertainty, both individual and social, that it now almost completely supersedes the trust hitherto placed in ‘expert systems’ (Giddens 1994).

In this chapter, I will further elaborate on my key findings in the following conceptual areas: synthesising feminist theories in higher education in Pukhtunkhwa, the inappropriateness of applying Western models to a non-Western setting, redefining cultural and religious discourses, lack of female role models in Pukhtunkhwa society, women's lack of training and experience in the decision-making process, money, marriage and masters and the appli-cation and relevance of Marxist feminism and Islamic socialism.

Synthesising Feminist Theories in Higher Education in Pukhtunkhwa

The theoretical framework of this study has been informed by work on gender inequality in education from different feminist theories (liberal, radical, Marxist and Islamic), with a common underlying theme being challenging the male-dominated nature of the field of education (Mattu and Hussain, 2004; Dean, 2007). My study adopted a radical Islamic feminist approach by challenging the cultural and patriarchal Pukhtunkhwa traditional society to empower women. As I made clear in the section addressing Marxist feminism, this study also adopted some aspects of a Marxist feminist approach, especially the recognition that women's experiences in Pukhtunkhwa (as elsewhere) are influenced by capitalism and its attendant hierarchical set of social class relations as well as by patriarchy.

I am seeking empowerment for women in Pukhtunkhwa to make decisions about their lives without confrontation with their religion and the men of their families. Instead, they should be free to achieve their goals and realise their rights in partnership with men and with an understanding of Islamic theology (Contractor, 2010) set out by contemporary writers and the concept of Ijtihad, which enables them to challenge patriarchal interpretations of their Islamic faith. In the analysis of my interview data, my sample women seemed very accepting and passive regarding their own experiences and situations. This study opens an arena for the Pukhtun women to have more confidence in making their voices heard which might contribute to transformation.

Furthermore, my study rejected the argument put forward by liberal feminists that equality should be brought about by state law. Pakistan already has a constitutional law to provide equal opportunities for men and women in edu-cation and other fields of life, but this exists only in official documents, not in practice. Similarly, the country's name is the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’: it is an Islamic country, but Islam is not truly implemented in state affairs and law.

The national character of the Russians of today and their social structure, both of which are in process of evolution, are reflected almost completely in the changes which are going on in one class.

The doctor of medicine and philosophy raised a pair of strong hands which had been used in surgery at one of the war hospitals in Moscow during the afternoon, and to accompany oratory at a meeting of the Constitutional Democrats - the Cadet Party - in the evening. “You will learn at last in America that this Great War will have its benefits,” the Doctor said. “It is teaching us that we are strong; it has issued a call to us commanding us to learn to organize and act, not only in war but also in peace; it has taught us to see a world larger than the world of our family doorsteps. It has shown us that we can do all that is necessary to the old and true duties and, at our best, have energy and desire to accept new labors. The war has taught us! This morning at breakfast my children spoke of Russian victory. I said to them that the great Russian victories were in the new thought and visions of the people.”

The Doctor did not speak of any class; the words were without any suggestion of distinction between different kinds of Russian hearts and Russian heads. There are almost twice as many men, women and children in the Empire than there are in our States; the Doctor seemed to include them all. The Doctor was nearing middle age but was still pretty, even in a severe woolen suit. She is an attractive and competent woman.

The reason for her unconsciousness of sex is not difficult to define. Russia is the foremost undeveloped country in the world. It is the Potentiality of our time. Like its own flat gray expanse of physical surface beneath which untouched treasures of resource lie, a crust of mystery covers the human resource of the Russian millions; the call and the charm of Russia is not in its romantic, hazardous, youthful past, nor in its picturesque customs of the present, but in the suppressed seethe of human force beneath the crust.

Introduction

This chapter examines the health policies and physical infrastructure of healthcare delivery in Somalia. It argues that the humanitarian crisis because of the civil war in Somalia for many decades has negatively affected the formulation of policies and effective implementation of healthcare delivery in the country. In addition, the lack of a community healthcare approach has not been the center of healthcare delivery in Somalia. Thus, the nature of the healthcare needs of the citizens of the country has negatively affected the humanitarian crisis and economic development in the country. The research methods applied for this chapter involved using both questionnaire administration and semi-structured interviews to gain insights into the effectiveness of health policies as well as citizen perception of the healthcare delivery system in Somalia. Content analysis of World Health Organization, African Development Bank, and United Nations reports as well as United States Central for Disease Center (CDC) reports reviewed. Several academic journal articles were also reviewed. The finding of this research reveals that apart from the civil wars in Somalia, the healthcare delivery system in the country is severely affected by inadequate medical products, funding technology in the healthcare delivery system, inadequate health workforce, leadership, and lack of health delivery network in rural communities. In addition, poor government funding, lack of accountability or coordination in the way healthcare is delivered to citizens, and the challenges of insecurity, instability, and frequent confusion between local and international paradigms of health approaches have negatively affected the health delivery system in the country. Recommendations on how the government and private sectors could adopt a good steward leadership approach to effectively coordinate Somalia's health system's vision, direction, and policies to ensure vibrant basic healthcare services to all citizens soon are provided.

Brief History of Somalia

Democratic Republic of Somalia is a country in the northeastern Horne of the African continent. The nation has a boundary with Ethiopia in the west, and Kenya in the south. It also has a boundary with Djibouti and the Red Sea in the northwest. The Indian Ocean covers the south, east, and northeastern parts of Somalia.

Introduction

In this chapter, I aim to examine the role of emotions in the context of social movements and collective behaviours that challenge the capitalist social order. This perspective is not new, as numerous works, particularly in sociology, have contributed to a lively debate, starting with Melucci and continuing through Jasper and Goodwin (Melucci 1981; Jasper 2011; Goodwin and Jasper 2006). I would like to approach the debate from a perspective that is chiefly informed by cultural anthropology. I aim to structure my discussion on emotions within a framework that allows for the questioning of how subjectivities are shaped, alongside the theory of false consciousness. This approach enables a deeper exploration of the mechanisms through which values become dominant in the context of wider societal and cultural contradictions.

To start, it is essential to delineate the anthropological discourse on emotions, characterised by unique features that set it apart from the treatment of emotions in sociology, psychology and political science.

For a long time, anthropology paid little to no attention to the topic of emotions, which were considered the domain of psychology. This approach stemmed from a widespread assumption, outlined by Emile Durkheim's differentiation between the social (objective and influenced by external causes) and the psychic (pertaining to subjectivity, internal). Much as for other subjects such as illness and pain, the anthropological approach to emotions has historically been characterised by subordination to other disciplines. In some cases, this has allowed the idea that emotions are pre-social and pre-cultural and therefore pertain to a strictly individual sphere, the object of study for psychology or even biology. While early explorations of emotions can be identified, it was in the 1980s that the theoretical stage was established for their treatment as ‘natural’ and ‘intimate’, and as the fundamental junction between society, body and the individual (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987).

Anthropologists, especially within the realms of medical anthropology and ethnopsychiatry, questioned this approach following the deconstruction of the Cartesian mind-body divide. In this sense, the title of Catherin Lutz's ‘Unnatural emotions’ (1988) unequivocally signals the shift in perspective.

The war has brought to Russia one change so beneficent, so extraordinary in effect, from which the results in a short space of time have been so marked and so cumulative, that not to observe and mention it apart would be to give it less emphasis than it deserves.

Russia has tried an experiment in nationwide prohibition; the impression it has made upon her social and economic structure is deep and permanent enough to make it impossible to say that of all the lessons of the war, from whatever corner of the conflict, any has a greater significance to the future of civilization.

Upon the theory that the function of government is only to adjust the rights and obligations between man and man, and not to adjust the obligations of an individual to himself, and upon the theory that no restrictive measure is wise until a people are not only willing to legislate it but also substantially to live it, I went to Russia an opponent of any national prohibition. I promised myself to be an impartial observer, but I was filled with the expectation and perhaps the hope that I might take away support for my beliefs.

I was routed.

The facts overwhelmed me; I cannot see how a national liquor dealers’ and manufacturers’ league could go to Russia and bring back an adverse report on national prohibition. Russia has been an example of what alcohol can do to gag the voice of progress and make the colors run in the fabric of social organism - her national prohibition is an example of how the abolition of alcohol will set the tide of life running toward regeneration - over night!

In America on my return I found even sincere seekers of the truth who had succeeded in obtaining from Russia bits of evidence that the prohibition was being avoided, that the most significant effect was evasion of the law, that the law had made it impossible for those who had learned to depend upon alcohol to obtain it and hence many had died from deprivation or had tossed off cans of varnish or other stimulating poison in agony, and that the government itself was slyly breaking its own ukase.

The health of the people of Africa is essential in all ramifications to their physical and mental well-being as well as the economies of the 55 countries on the continent. Professor Robert Dibie's new Transforming Healthcare in Africa: A Comparative Analysis book will contribute another especially important framework in the human right to healthcare in the African continent. It is directed at examining how globalization, and nations interdependence affects healthcare decisions and processes across many boundaries and borders. It is especially important that students, scholars, and citizens of the world understand how these systems work or do not work. The book is also especially important because healthcare is about life and human right in Africa as well as in the world in general. While some African countries have the capacity to do so much more by understanding the variability of our worldwide health policies and practices others are not capable to do so due to ineffective political institutions, political will, lack of visionary leaders, and lack of funding. The challenge in most African countries is how to think in new ways and produce innovations that will enable them to develop organizations, processes, policies, and best practices that can be in place for a long time as well as sustain a healthy life for all citizens. The major goal of this book is to help students think more deeply about how healthcare is organized and delivered in various countries. Each country in the African continent has invented its healthcare system to respond to a particular set of forces. By examining each of the systems presented in the book, students will come away with new perspectives and ideas of what an ideal health policy should be. In addition, these innovative ideas could then be used as a series of lenses to first get new insights about each person's home country system, and what best practices to adopt. The African countries covered in this book have been successful in their respective ways. However, celebrating and valuing each of these are especially important mechanisms for advancing a better healthcare system for not only African countries but the entire world.

Introduction

This chapter examines why African leaders, senior public administrators, and rich citizens prefer to seek their healthcare in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Canada, the United States, India, Singapore, and so on. It also discusses challenges such as poor funding and infrastructure, adequate regulation and poor standards, lack of highly qualified medical staff, as well as negative perceptions that could be major reasons for a mass exodus of Africans seeking healthcare in countries outside their continent. The chapter also argues that although there are a couple of well-established private hospitals, health centers, and clinics in some African countries, there are still convoluted perceptions of poor healthcare services. The fact that patients admitted to such hospitals may not get the value for their money is also a major challenge. Therefore, to prevent gambling with their life, political leaders and rich African elites prefer to travel outside their respective nations to countries outside the continent to seek healthcare. The research conducted reveals that because of the huge gap in the healthcare sector in the African continent, many entrepreneurs from outside the continent, especially India are beginning to explore opportunities in the African continent by investing heavily in providing state-of-the-art medical facilities. Even then many rich African leaders especially those who have stolen public funds prefer to travel abroad to seek medical care. Some recommendations are provided on how African nations could start to change the poor nature of their health infrastructure, and negative perception of their healthcare delivery system.

Medical tourism is defined as a situation that galvanizes a sick person to travel to a foreign country to seek medical care, or wellness treatment (Stolley & Watson 2012). Medical tourism also occurs when consumers elect to travel across international borders to receive some form of medical treatment (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Report 2007). The sick people who travel to foreign countries to seek healthcare are called medical tourists (Dalen & Alpert 2018). According to Beland and Zarzeczny (2018) and Kim and Hyun (2022), the idea of seeking treatment outside the boundaries of a person's country of residence or nation of origin has led to a new type of health industry. It has also been reported that the medical tourism industry has expanded systematically over the past two decades (Kim & Hyun 2022).