Support and solidarity needed as Malawi faces Covid-19 crisis
UNITY PROVES TO BE STRENGTH AS MALAI FACES ITS COVID BATTLE
AS THE world’s battle against Covid-19 rages on, the Gorey Malawi Health Partnership has shifted its focus on looking at how the developing world is coping during the crisis.
Dr Peter Harrington of the Palms Surgery in Gorey commended frontline staff and the people of Wexford for handling the crisis particularly well, but said that he fears sub-Saharan Africa is now being overwhelmed by an expanding Covid 19 pandemic.
Realising the serious threat of Covid-19 when it reached Malawi in April, the team got to work quickly to help those that they have already built relationships with.
‘The Gorey Malawi Health Partnership has supported our partners in Malawi and colleagues in Mzuzu and will continue to do so. We have sent an aid parcel, finance, and are developing at present a series of brief educational video podcasts capable of dissemination through smart phone from healthcare worker to healthcare worker,’ he said.
Dr Harrington said that now is the time for solidarity with Malawi, something focused on a recent article written by Dr David Weakliam and published in the HSE staff magazine Health Matters.
In the article, Dr Weakliam says that the global nature of health has never more evident than during a pandemic such as this.
‘The Covid-19 pandemic affects all countries and it is in all of our interest to work together to bring it under control. In Ireland, the government has deployed an unprecedented scale of resources to tackle the pandemic. But how will the countries with the least resources fare? These are places where many health facilities lack basic hand washing facilities with soap and running water, where personal protective equipment is lacking, and where few hospitals have intensive care facilities with adequate trained staff and medical equipment.
‘Social distancing is often impractical and measures to “flatten the curve” may also flatten the economy. There are no safety nets for people who need to be able to go out to work just to feed their families’.
The HSE and its staff have established links over the years with less developed countries, such as ‘ESTHER Ireland’, the HSE Global Health Programme which facilitates health professionals across the Irish health service to develop longterm partnerships to address shared health problems.
Dr Weakliam explained that Covid-19 has suddenly emerged as the new priority, and now is the time to show solidarity and remain committed to working together.
‘Malawi is a low income country in southern Africa with a population of 18 million and an under resourced health service. Even with external aid, it spends only about €80 per capita per year on health care, which is about 2% of per capita expenditure in Ireland.
‘If Covid-19 spreads in the community, the health service will be quickly overwhelmed. Health workers will be affected and many essential health services will be disrupted’.
He complimented the long standing relationship between St John’s Hospital in Mzuzu, northern Malawi, and the Gorey Malawi Health Partnership as well as the leadership it has shown during the initiative.
‘Dr Peter Harrington and Dr Joe Gallagher have established an initiative with St John’s Hospital to develop services for the growing number of people with chronic diseases, such as asthma and hypertension.
‘Faced with the threat of Covid-19 in Malawi, the partnership has had to adjust its plans and the partnership is now about Covid-19, whatever else it is about,’ he said.
‘While local businesses in Mzuzu re-purposed their work to manufacture face shields, face masks and aprons, the Palms Surgery put together a parcel of critical items that are difficult to purchase in Malawi, such as thermometers and pulse oximeters. The partnership undertook a rapid multi-sectoral needs assessment using email and online meetings and they identified educational resources as of the greatest relevance to Malawi.
‘While there is an array of Covid-19 resources from WHO and other organisations, the Malawian partners have found them quite confusing and some of the guidance cannot be implemented in such a low resource setting. The Palms Surgery suggested to develop a series of short educational videos or podcasts, in keeping with WHO advice, that could be shared quickly via WhatsApp.
‘The technical content of the training was co-developed by the Palms Surgery, St John’s Hospital and the HSE Global Health Programme. The HSE provided funding for additional technical assistance to produce and disseminate high quality videos.
‘The output is a series of 14 short, engaging and educational animated videos on topics related to Covid-19, targeting health care workers in Malawi and other low resource settings.
Dr Chihana, Director of St John’s Hospital, Mzuzu has since expressed appreciation for the support provided through the partnership.
‘We have always valued our partnership and now in the face of Covid-19, there is strength in unity.
‘When we were still thinking on the way forward, you guided us on the most important thing which is PPE. The staff are really conscious and are refusing to see patients if they don’t have PPE. The other challenge being that this is depleting our little resources especially the drug budget.
‘We thank you very much for your timely support in kind and also the education that will go a long way to help St John’s Hospital and also people surrounding it’.
This initiative shows the value in a crisis of health partnerships between the Irish health service and less developed countries and there are immediate benefits in Malawi now but according to Dr Harrington and the team, the learning is mutual and there will be valuable lessons going forward that can be brought back to our own health service here in Ireland.
The team, as always, thanks the people of Gorey for their support of the partnership.
WE HAVE SENT AN AID PARCEL, FINANCE AND ARE DEVELOPING A SERIES OF BRIEF, EDUCATIONAL VIDEO PODCASTS