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Moses Mubanda, Health Ministry |
World attention has come to us because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the leadership role of Kofi Annan. We have seen a great flowering of organizations, groups, plans, strategies being proposed to handle our problems. We need to develop our own ideas of what policies, what guidelines, and specific proposals we want. For too long we have been passive recipients of what others would do for us and to us.
The International Partnership Against AIDS in Africa has been an important stimulus for us. However, their chief feature has been collection of data: establishing indicators, monitoring, and evaluating data. There is mention of strengthening local capabilities, but there is not much detail. We need to do more than collect data.
We need to obtain funding from the UN Global fund, and from Foundations like Gates, to set up clinics, train staff, obtain transportation, and get free medicines. Without all of these we do not have the financial resources to provide treatment. Our proposal should specify that we want 1 helicopter and 5 Range Rovers per year for this program.
Strengthen training staff so that half can go to existing facilities and teach how to diagnose and treat AIDS, malaria, and TB. We will also teach them the Haiti method of dispensing AIDS drugs. The other half train new people in our capital city.
A helicopter can visit each of these clinics regularly to take in an allotment of drugs for a month. An Epidemiologist from the primary teaching institution should be in that helicopter, and come back with notes of what he has observed and learned about the working of the clinic, and the health conditions. He can teach them what data he wants, and collect it when he comes in.
Welcome any medical school from abroad that wants to set up facilities, and direct them to where we don’t have anything.
Our Ministry will divide the money and drugs among all these sites—a little bit for everyone, but a lot more in the big cities. How much we do depends on how much we receive in drugs.
Begin a "20,000 clinic" drive: we will build in every town of 20,000 at least one health clinic, staffed by three doctors, six nurses, three midwives, and three lab technicians, and a pharmacy. Big cities should have clinics for every 20,000 people. We will try to create 5 clinics a year--some of ours, some from abroad, some from NGOs.
Each clinic should have one Range Rover so that a small staff can visit villages and rural areas around it, provide diagnosis and treatment. They can give drugs for a month to a designated "DOT-TER" who will dispense the drugs during that month. That means we should have 5 Range Rovers each year. The clinic will have use of the Range Rover for 2 of every 4 weeks.
On prevention: we propose traveling groups of entertainers who go to different communities with an eye and ear-catching program that will de-stigmatize AIDS, educate on how HIV is acquired, promote the use of condoms and safe sex practices. So many are dying of AIDS that people may be more receptive. The entertainers can use the Range Rovers of the clinics for 2 weeks in each month.
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