The Olympics may be beautiful on the outside, but what is really happening to public health? (Olympics & Public Health)

When we think of the Olympics, we think of the world's best athletes, beautifully designed stadiums, and a lot of celebration, right? It's an event that we all look forward to, a time when the world comes together. But have you ever thought about what impact this might have on the ordinary people in the city where this great event is being held? In fact, for a city hosting the Olympics, this may not be a good thing in every way. Sometimes, behind this beauty, there is a hidden side that no one talks about, which affects people's health. Let's talk about it today.

What will happen to healthcare?

You'd be surprised to think about the cost of hosting an Olympic Games. It's an astronomical sum. For example, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, cost about $50 billion. When you spend that much money on one thing, it can take a toll on a country's health system, especially a less affluent one.

As Diego Silva, a senior lecturer in bioethics at the University of Sydney, says, "When something extraordinary like the Olympics comes to a country with an already struggling health system, that system can't handle it."

A good example of this is the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. At that time, Brazil was already in the midst of a severe economic crisis. This led to cuts in services at public hospitals, clinics, and emergency treatment units (ETUs), and some units were even closed. At the time, media reported that "Rio residents were waiting for days to undergo emergency surgery or be admitted to an intensive care unit. However, athletes in the Olympic Village were receiving the highest level of medical care."

The same is true of the 2004 Athens Olympics. Greece spent about 5% of its GDP on it. Shortly after that, the country went into a severe debt crisis. As a result, funding for public hospitals was cut by more than 50%. Today, many of the Olympic stadiums built for the Games have been abandoned, with no use for them.

Have you thought about the damage to the environment?

The damage caused to the surrounding environment by an Olympic event is not insignificant. This also directly affects people's health. It has been estimated that about 500 million gallons of water were needed to make artificial snow for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. In an area that was already experiencing water shortages, this water was obtained by cutting off the water supply of farmers and the general public.

Before the Sochi Olympics, human rights organizations reported that the village of Akhshtyr had been without a permanent water supply for more than five years due to Olympic construction. The report stated that "heavy dust from construction vehicles has caused serious damage to people's health, property, livestock, and agriculture."

The lives of the workers on these massive construction projects are also at risk. The pressure to finish the work on time means that safety precautions are often neglected. About 70 workers died during construction in Sochi. 13 died before the Rio Games. A worker building the Tokyo Olympic stadium committed suicide after working 190 hours of overtime in a month. It was officially recognized as a "death due to overwork."

Impact on human lives

This is perhaps the least talked about, but most devastating impact. Local people are being forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for the Olympic construction. Sometimes it's heartbreaking to hear these numbers.

Imagine the pain of millions of people being forced to leave their homes, their neighbors, and their livelihoods behind. These evictions have been accompanied by violence, with some even jailing those who oppose them. Some have committed suicide, unable to bear the pressure.

It often affects the poor, minorities and marginalized. The favelas in Rio, the Roma at the Barcelona and Athens festivals are examples. When these people are forcibly uprooted from their familiar environment, they lose all their social connections and ways of supporting each other. The psychological trauma that results is devastating.

Is the risk of spreading infectious diseases real?

With millions of people gathering in one place around the world, there is always the fear of infectious diseases spreading at every Olympic Games. But surprisingly, there have been no major outbreaks. There were concerns about the mosquito-borne Zika virus before the 2016 Rio Games, but no new cases were reported during the Games.

Both the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics, which were held amid the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), appear to have met this challenge successfully. The International Olympic Committee says there is no evidence of the coronavirus spreading between athletes and the local population. This is because of the advanced health safety measures used in such large-scale events.

What will the future be like?

So what can be done to minimize the damage caused by this Olympics?

The first thing is to choose a host city. The Olympics should be hosted by a country with a strong economy that can withstand any economic downturn that may occur between the day the announcement is made and the day the Games are held. Rio was chosen in 2009. However, by the time the Games were held in 2016, the country was already in economic decline. Therefore, I believe that the cities that have been chosen as future host cities, such as Paris (2024), Milan (2026) and Los Angeles (2028), will be able to meet this challenge.

There are a few more suggestions:

• Reducing the scale of the festival: Holding the festival on a smaller scale, rather than on such a grand scale.
• Decentralization: Holding events in multiple cities, rather than being limited to one city.
• A permanent host city: Holding the Olympics in one permanent location, rather than choosing a new city each time. This would eliminate the need to build new buildings, relocate people, and damage the environment each time.

These proposals are not new. After the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896, Greece requested that the Olympics be held in Athens forever. But that didn't happen. But now, given the enormous social, environmental, and health damage caused by the Olympics, it's time to think seriously again.

Olympics, Olympic Festival, Public Health, Health Impact, Environmental Damage, Social Impact, Host City, Olympic, Public Health