From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org


Three-way partnership aims to improve health care in Africa


From "NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>
Date Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:02:09 -0600

March 15, 2004	 News media contact: Linda Green 7 (615)742-5470 7 Nashville,
Tenn. 7 E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org 7 ALL-AF-AA-I {105}

NOTE: Photographs, video, audio and three related reports, UMNS stories #106,
#107 and #108, are available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Linda Green*

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (UMNS) - Two United Methodist-related entities and a research
hospital have entered a partnership to advance health care in Africa by
training medical providers to respond more effectively to infectious
diseases.

Africa University, Methodist Healthcare of Memphis and St. Jude Children's
Research Hospital in Memphis have engaged in a partnership to equip health
care professionals from Zimbabwe to deal with HIV/AIDS. The partnership is
helping health care providers address the pandemic through education,
prevention, treatment and infection control in their communities. Though the
partnership is 3 years old, officials discussed it for the first time in
recent interviews with United Methodist News Service. 

The partnership provides a way for Africa University to do outreach and
expand the church's ministry as well as change health care across Zimbabwe,
said James Salley, associate vice chancellor of development at the United
Methodist-related school.
 
"My dream is that United Methodists would see this joint ministry and their
investment in Africa University as a good thing because of the human good now
being done and the potential it has for the future," he said.

The school's new Faculty of Health Sciences will assist Methodist Healthcare
and St. Jude in developing the program. The Medical Center of the University
of Kentucky is also providing assistance.

The three-way partnership began with a conversation in 1999 between Methodist
Healthcare Chaplain Elvernice "Sonny" Davis and Dr. Raul Ribeiro, director of
St. Jude's International Outreach Program, about AIDS in Africa. As a United
Methodist minister, Davis knew about Africa University and thought it could
be the avenue for helping stem the pandemic in Africa.

Further talks focused on Africa University becoming the site of
distance-learning opportunities for health care programs and St. Jude
providing on-site training. The conversation paved the way for a study trip
of health care professional from Methodist Healthcare and St. Jude to Africa.
The doctors and nurses observed the quality of facilities and staff, and the
high rate of patient death and illness resulting from HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe.

Each day across the African continent, nearly 7,000 people die from HIV/AIDS.
 In many parts of Africa, the health care system is so poor that instead of
being a tool for treatment it actually becomes a transmission agent - through
the re-use of needles - in spreading the virus. Globally, AIDS is the leading
infectious cause of death. An estimated 42 million people worldwide -
including 3.2 million children under age 15 - are living with HIV/AIDS.

After the trip to Zimbabwe, St. Jude and Methodist Healthcare officials
acknowledged a great need for HIV/AIDS-trained health care professionals for
Mutare, home of Africa University, and Zimbabwe proper. A visiting fellowship
was developed to provide additional education for doctors and nurses from
Zimbabwe at St. Jude and Methodist Healthcare. Methodist Healthcare sponsors
and funds the fellowship, which brings in two health care professionals a
year from Zimbabwe for training in HIV/AIDS care at St. Jude.

The study trip also led to a meeting of officials from the United Methodist
Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the Board of Global Ministries,
Africa University, the University of Kentucky, Methodist Healthcare, St. Jude
and Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center. As a result of that meeting,
Methodist Healthcare of Houston provided a grant to hire a dean to help
Africa University develop the Faculty of Health Sciences.  

The health sciences department, which started in January, "seeks to train a
leadership cadre of community and public health practitioners who will be
able to function adequately in sub-Sahara African countries as managers of
community health projects, district health managers, coordinators of district
level HIV/AIDS and disease prevention and control programs," according to the
school's Web site. "The training will focus on service in the rural areas,
which are usually underserved by the health authorities in most of the least
developed countries on the African continent."
 
Between January 2001 and October 2003, Dr. Miguela A. Caniza, director of
Infectious Diseases in St. Jude's International Outreach Program, hosted 10
fellows from the university and Mutare, including four nurses and four
physicians who trained for two months at St. Jude in HIV/AIDS education,
prevention and treatment, and infection control. 

One participant was Dr. Tendai Manyeza, the doctor at Africa University and
Mutare Mission. The training gave him and the other health care providers
up-to-date information and practical knowledge about HIV/AIDS, Caniza said. 

"The ultimate goal is to improve the survival (rate) or prevent AIDS in
places where it is so prevalent," she said. One day, she said, she hopes that
trials of a proposed vaccine will be conducted from Africa University.

The university is a good partner because of its location, its mission, its
resources and its environment, she said. "Africa University just fit
beautifully into what we are doing here at St. Jude and what they are doing
over there."

The university's Faculty of Health Sciences is identifying key people for
training and helping determine how St. Jude can best be the conduit for that.

"Africa University is significant because of its relationship with the local
community knows who they are and how those people can impact the community,"
Caniza said. One hope is that the university would become a referral center
for other countries, so that people could go to there to learn about HIV/AIDS
instead of traveling to St. Jude.

The school's mission of educating leaders is critical to St. Jude and
Methodist Healthcare's international outreach efforts, Caniza said. HIV/AIDS
is rampant in part because of the lack of education among lay people and
health care providers. That, she said, produces a stigma of isolation and
discrimination of people with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.  

"Africa University is the key for education ... and in the health science
center, this is what they are going to be doing - training and producing
health care professionals," she said. St. Jude and Methodist Healthcare would
not be providing training to beginners or "from scratch. We are going to
complement their education in providing information in HIV/AIDS," she said.

One way to do that will be through distance education, which Caniza says is
"becoming an incredible tool in the age of globalization." St. Jude already
uses this approach to provide educational opportunities electronically in
other countries. Through a format such as video conferencing, the hospital
can deliver lectures, lessons, presentations and diagnosis assistance.	

The hospital uses Cure4Kids, an international online medical education and
collaboration network that helps health care professionals in countries with
limited resources treat children with infectious and catastrophic diseases.

Along with lack of resources, isolation is a problem for physicians in poor
countries, according to Dr. Judith Wilimas, a director in the international
outreach program. "One of the things we can easily provide them is the help
and support ... which allows them to go on with their program."  

Comparing the partnership to the parable of teaching a man to fish, Wilimas
said the goal is not to tell the physicians what to do but to assist them in
developing the appropriate medical program. "The way we treat patients at St.
Jude is not going to work in Central America or in Africa."   

The partnership has been a learning experience for all involved - the St.
Jude and Methodist Healthcare officials as well as the practitioners from
Zimbabwe. "We learned many things from them," Caniza said. "We learned that
they have amazing strength and hope ... and vision and courage."

Wilimas took their impressions a step further. What was most significant, she
said, is "what they are able to accomplish with so little - what so few
people can do that will make such a great difference."	

Dr. Patricia Flynn, a member of St. Jude's Department of Infectious Diseases,
provided a list of ways to move health care forward in Zimbabwe and other
developing countries. Topping her list is prevention, which can be
accomplished not only through educational programs but also by working toward
vaccines. A second step is preventing HIV transmission from pregnant women to
their babies. The third area is making treatment available to extend the
lives of those already infected with HIV.

"Africa University is crucial to these efforts," Flynn said, "because the
efforts to educate people in Zimbabwe and the entire African continent are
critical to have qualified health care people to deliver care among the
population. It is through these individuals who are known, trusted and
respected within their communities that we can have the most impact in
spreading information and providing care. Africa University will bring to us
a sense of cultural sensitivity."

Flynn calls the partnership promising. 

"I believe in this," she said. "St. Jude is a hospital, and I know Methodist
Healthcare is committed to working with this disease. This is done because we
want to help people. It is not done to make money or to become famous. It is
done because it comes from our hearts.

"It is a mission we have."

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer in Nashville, Tenn.

 
 

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org


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