It’s here: the most exciting and meaningful holiday of the year, for many of us. How are you celebrating? As an international company, GlobalMed’s partners, customers and employees are spending the season in a variety of ways. That can include putting up a tree for a traditional family Christmas, creating pathways of las luminarias on Christmas Eve, making resolutions for January 1 or honoring other cultural and religious traditions.
But if there’s one consistent theme across communities and celebrations this time of year, it’s light. December may be the darkest month in the Northern Hemisphere but it’s also the time when cities glitter with Christmas lights on trees and shop windows. Hanukkah and Kwanzaa feature the ritual lighting of candles; in late autumn, Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights. Chinese New Year in January includes fireworks, a Lantern Festival, and gifts to promote good fortune and good health. In ancient times, Scandinavian and Germanic pagans lit fires and burned Yule logs to celebrate the Winter Solstice, while the Roman festival of Saturnalia featured gifts of wax candles to signify the return of the sun.
From past to present, the meaning of light in these traditions is simple: it’s a symbol of hope.
Our Vision of a Brighter Healthcare Landscape
If you’ve celebrated Christmas morning in a loved one’s hospital room or been seriously ill over the holidays, you know the importance of hope at this time of year. When chemotherapy doesn’t seem to be working, when you can’t find the right expert to see your autistic daughter and your father’s hearing loss is going untreated, sometimes hope is all you’ve got until real help arrives.
At GlobalMed, our goal is to provide both. That’s why we talk so much about expanding access to care and improving patient outcomes. These may be buzzphrases but they represent real people undergoing real suffering. In some countries, polio and drug-resistant tuberculosis are still problems. Americans pay the highest healthcare costs but have less access to healthcare resources than other affluent nations. All in all, half of the human race can’t obtain essential health services.
But we have the power to change that. We have new innovations and care delivery models like telemedicine that can help those who are running out of hope. None of our current healthcare challenges will be solved overnight. But we have every reason to believe in a world where we collectively transform provider burdens and patient outcomes. Our hope this holiday season is that you believe that too and that you’ll join us in creating a healthier new era for all.
From everyone at GlobalMed, have a beautiful holiday season and a joyful Christmas.