wfn.org | Spouses' Programme plenary on social issues targets health

["Christopher Took" <storm@indigo.ie>]

concerns 

ACNS LC046 - 24 July 1998

Spouses' Programme plenary on social issues targets health
concerns 

by Roland Ashby
Spouses Programme Communication

Twenty-eight thousand children die each day from largely
preventable diseases. Every minute of every day eight babies die
following pregnancy and one woman dies from pregnancy-related
complications. 

Dr. Yuji Kawaguchi of the World Health Organisation related these
and other startling figures, as part of a major presentation to
the bishops' spouses at the Lambeth Conference on July 22.

Speaking on the theme "A Healthy World?, Strategies for Hope,"
Dr. Kawaguchi and other experts addressed key health issues
facing the world.

In 1997, Dr Kawaguchi said, 5.8 million people were newly
infected with HIV, and 2.3 million people died from AIDS.

He warned that if the world's mean temperature increases by only
one to two centigrades, as recent scientific studies suggest,
then mosquitoes may extend their range to new geographical areas,
leading to increased cases of malaria and other infectious
diseases. 

He also expressed concern about the susceptibility of infants and
children to the increase in the use of chemicals worldwide.

Allocating resources

Sheila Ramalshah, wife of the Bishop of Pakistan, described
Pakistan's allocation of only two percent of its income to health
care as "abysmal." She said, "It seems that the powers that be
have decided that it is more important to spend about 70 percent
of the nation's income on militarism and the related repayment of
international debt. Such a situation means that we are woefully
ill-equipped . . . to serve our community through health care."

She said that diseases related to women were being especially
aggravated by Pakistan's social structure. "In my area of the
North Western Frontier Province, women can only be heard and not
seen, except behind the high walls of their dwellings. Their
lives become so domesticated and mechanised they are primarily
perceived as child-producing machines. As for sexually related
disease amongst women, we dare not even guess the true reality."

Mrs. Ramalshah said that the "whole issue of HIV positive and
AIDS is still a taboo subject in our society. We are quite
convinced there must be a lot of cases of this nature in our
diocese - especially as homosexuality is rampant there. But there
is neither public awareness nor any public debate on these
issues." 

She said that she and her husband often felt "frustrated in
sharing these needs with the western churches, who often react to
them as if the church is wasting its resources by seemingly
duplicating societal programmes," and challenged the church "to
be true and obedient to its call to servanthood by meeting the
needs of the suffering people."

Protecting women from AIDS

Mrs. Juliana Okine, wife of the Bishop of Ghana, attributed
Ghana's growing AIDS problem to "the unlimited matrimonial powers
that husbands generally wield over their wives . . . when it
comes to contraception and AIDS protection. The fact that only
the male condom is widely available in itself gives a promiscuous
man power to sentence a woman to death if he will not use a
condom. 

Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island (USA) strongly criticised the
American health care system. "I stand here . . . as a citizen of
the most technically advanced country in the world with regard to
health care . . . (and yet) if you're unemployed or in part-time
work in America health care is difficult to attain."

Captain Ian Campbell, International Health Programme Consultant
for the Salvation Army, advocated a more integrated community
development approach to the care of those suffering with AIDS, in
which hospitals, clinics and churches offer community
counselling, education and support in partnership with people in
the home, neighbourhood and local community.

Dr. David Gitari, Archbishop of Kenya, said that most of the
illness in his diocese was preventable. "Many people catch
water-borne diseases such as typhoid, dysentery and cholera. They
only need to be told to boil water, even the tap water, before
they drink it."

He said simple education programs had been most effective in
tackling the problems. 

"Parish-selected community health workers, after just eight weeks
training in the treatment and prevention of our six most common
diseases, return to their parishes to conduct seminars," he said.
"Whenever I preach I also spend a few minutes explaining the
importance of boiling water before drinking it.'

The final speaker, Mr. Hugh Bailey, MP for York and Parliamentary
Private Secretary to Frank Dobson, the British Secretary of State
for Health, said the government believed the answer to social and
health problems lay in people deciding to take responsibility at
every level.

"Our strategy for health, and for hope . . . is one which very
much emphasises responsibility. But not just at the individual
(and local community) level. The government accepts
responsibility to do those things which only government can do."

For further information, contact:

Lambeth Conference Communications
Canterbury Business School
University of Kent at Canterbury
Telephone: 01227 827348/9
Fax: 01227 828085
Mobile: 0374 800212

http://www.lambethconference.org