Emily Bell — ‘Tis the season for giving …and reflection
Wracking your brain to decide what to buy this holiday season for your friend or loved one? Tired of giving neck ties, slippers, and sweaters you just know they’ll wind up returning?
Consider giving the Gift of Health instead. Together, we can address the severe shortage of doctors, nurses and other health workers in Africa! During this holiday season, as part of our Who Cares? Campaign to mobilize a broad-based army of people who are concerned about healthcare in Africa, we are reaching out to you for our annual holiday appeal.
At the Touch Foundation, we are committed to increasing the number of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers in Tanzania, a country that faces a gap of almost 90,000 healthcare workers to meet minimal healthcare standards. We have been supporting a medical university and teaching hospital in Mwanza since 2004 to train health workers and ultimately to save lives.
Collectively, if enough supporters like you and your friends feel compelled to give, we can easily reach our grassroots goal of $10,000 this holiday season – if each of our Twitter followers gave just $1 we would reach our goal!
The old adage, “every little bit helps,” is true. Any gift, whether large or small, is important to us, but more important to the people of Tanzania.
Please click here to learn more about how you can send a tribute card in someone’s honor or make a donation to the Touch Foundation.
Emily Bell is Head of Advocacy and Communications at the Touch Foundation.
Habari — Liz Pavlovich: Congratulations to Bugando Graduates!
On November 21, at a graduation ceremony that was both energetic and dignified, the number of doctors in the Lake Zone region of Tanzania grew by ten percent. It was a joyful day for the 15 million people in this region who rely on the healthcare system that the graduating doctors and other health professionals will serve. But more tangibly, it was a day that immortalized the hopes and dreams of dedicated young individuals.
This was Bugando University’s second graduation ceremony of MD students. In addition to the 24 MD graduates, 166 graduates from Bugando’s seven other health disciplines graduated in 2009: post-graduate MDs, nurses, nurse-anesthetists, assistant medical officers, radiographers, pharmacists and laboratory technologists.
When the graduates received their diplomas, proud friend or family members would run up to the stage, showering their loved ones with festive lay necklaces and gifts so that the graduates returned to their seats with arms full and the classic gowns rendered more colorful. The confidence and hope that the graduates’ mentors, educators, friends and family members have invested in the new health workers were palpable. This optimism filled the space like the band diddling on their electric instruments.
From under the graduation awnings situated on Bugando’s campus, the view was panoramic – the classrooms and hostel were 100 meters behind us, the graduates were seated adjacently, and Bugando’s world-class laboratory (nearly completed) provided the backdrop. The past, present and future of their careers – and the patients whom they will help – was in focus and resonated deeply with everyone that day.
So hongera sana, congratulations to all of the graduates! The effort and dedication to reach this pinnacle moment should be recognized and commended as a tremendous accomplishment.
Habari – News From Bugando – is a periodic blog posting by Liz Pavlovich, a Program Officer for the Touch Foundation who is based in Mwanza Tanzania. Since 2004, the Touch Foundation (www.touchfoundation.org) has been working with Tanzanian partners to address the health worker shortage by expanding the Bugando regional medical training college and teaching hospital. Bugando’s University is the second largest of five institutions training medical doctors in the country. It also trains health workers in seven other disciplines – post-graduate MDs, nurses, assistant medical officers, radiographers, pharmacists and laboratory technologists. The school is now training 900 students.
Habari — Liz Pavlovich: Weill Bugando University hosts first research symposium
Recently I learned that 60 percent of all babies born in sub-Saharan Africa are not born in a health facility, but rather, in the unsanitary and ill-equipped conditions of the home. This primarily happens in rural villages where women are not able to reach a health facility easily because of the distance or lack of transport and money.
If women bring their baby to the health facility after delivery, more than half of the time it is too late and the child dies. As a result, the odds are stacked against babies who are not born at health facilities. Nearly five times as many of these newborns die within the first couple of days than those babies born at facilities due to hypothermia, sepsis (inflammation of the entire body due to an infection) and other complications, compared to those born in health facilities.
This was just one of the research findings presented by Bugando University faculty and staff at the first research symposium hosted by this eight-year o
ld university in Mwanza, Tanzania. The National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) provided their brand new facility for the symposium, which accommodated about 300 people anxious to share knowledge about critical health topics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other serious conditions and diseases prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.
The importance of conducting research at academic institutions could not be emphasized enough by the keynote speaker, Dr. Kapiga. Research opportunities provide fuel for academic institutions such as Bugando to attract well-qualified faculty, offer exciting extracurricular activities to students, gain additional funding and integrate themselves into the international exchange of knowledge. Not to mention that research findings enable medical practitioners to better assist their patients, drug companies to improve treatments, and governments to better help their populations. With the findings I shared earlier, we better understand how important it is to the survival of newborns for the mother to deliver in a facility with the proper equipment and staff. This could justify the need for governments and organizations to provide education programs in rural communities that encourage women to go to health facilities for antenatal care and delivery or, likewise, encourage the training of greater numbers of health workers who are equipped to do outreach work in rural areas.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the opportunity to do research is very low because of lack of funds and facilities. It was very exciting to see Bugando showcase their hard work last week despite these inherent challenges. The Touch Foundation and other partners of the university will continue to support Bugando’s drive to conduct research. Ultimately, this research will generate knowledge that will help to improve health conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Habari – News From Bugando – is a periodic blog posting by Liz Pavlovich, a Program Officer for the Touch Foundation who is based in Mwanza Tanzania. Since 2004, the Touch Foundation (www.touchfoundation.org) has been working with Tanzanian partners to address the health worker shortage by expanding the Bugando regional medical training college and teaching hospital. Bugando’s University is the second largest of five institutions training medical doctors in the country. It also trains health workers in seven other disciplines – post-graduate MDs, nurses, assistant medical officers, radiographers, pharmacists and laboratory technologists. The school is now training 900 students.
Emily Bell — Welcome to the Who Cares? Campaign Blog
Welcome to the Who Cares? Campaign blog!
We hope this blog will provide a space for volunteers, health workers, academia, media and other concerned individuals to engage in informative discussion about the shortage of health workers in Africa. How is the severe shortage of doctors and nurses affecting medical care in Tanzania? What are the bottlenecks? What can people outside of Africa do about this important issue?
We were pleased to see that the New York Times has recently drawn attention to the dire shortage of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals in Tanzania by publishing a series of articles that focus on the country’s high maternal death rates. “Where Life’s Start is a Deadly Risk” (May 23, 2009) outlines the obstacles pregnant women face in receiving timely care, while the second article, “The Deadly Toll of Abortion by Amateurs” (June 1, 2009) discusses the perils of women who have had incomplete and unsafe abortions in Tanzania. The first article shares that Tanzania is “struggling to train more assistants and midwives, build more clinics and nursing schools, provide housing to attract doctors and nurses to rural areas and provide places for pregnant women to stay near hospitals so that they can make it to the labor ward on time…. ‘You can never get used to maternal deaths,’ said Dr. Siriel Nanzia Massawe…. ‘One minute she’s talking with her husband, then she is bleeding and then she is gone…. Too many die, too young. But the people in power, they have not seen it. We need to make them aware.’”
Fortunately, powerful people are becoming aware of the issue and starting to take action, bolstering the Touch Foundation’s efforts. In a follow-up letter to the editor, Senator Dick Durbin points to the complicity of the developed world in contributing to the health workers shortage in Africa. Durbin notes that the United States lures health workers from the developing world who emigrate for opportunities to “supply our growing appetite for healthcare.” Fortunately for Tanzania, health worker emigration is relatively low compared to other countries in the region, as only 6-15 percent of doctors and almost 0-5 percent of nurses emigrate. The country does, however, suffer from an internal loss of talent, as many health workers opt for higher paying jobs with international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and government ministries, which reduces overall access to care, as we found in our Lake Zone Initiative.
Thank you for visiting our blog. Let us know your comments and thoughts!
Emily Bell is Head of Advocacy and Communications at the Touch Foundation.