This Week's News 27-31 July 2009

Kath Honours Dedicated Workers
Ghana Chronicle

20/07/2009

Sebastian Freiku
Kumasi — MR. CHRIS Akanbobnaab, Senior Health Administrator and Business Manager of the Accident and Emergency Centre of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), was on Friday adjudged the 2008 Overall Best Worker of the hospital, for which he took home a grand prize of a fully air conditioned Tata saloon car.
He emerged winner from 92 names drawn from doctors (16), midwives (2), nurses (21), Healthcare assistants (12), personnel from Finance (5), Pharmacy (5), Administrative Staff (10) Support Staff (12) and Allied Staff (9) for the 14 categories.
The grand prize was donated by Ernest Chemists Company Limited, a pharmaceutical company and the lead sponsor of the 2008 KATH Best Worker Awards ceremony, the first in ten years.
The selection of best workers from the various departments was done by a Staff Award Committee, headed by the Director of Administration, which shortlisted a total of 92 names for the 14 categories, after an arduous, transparent and thorough process, which ensured fairness, neutrality.
Thirteen other members of staff received various prizes ranging from home theatres, 29-inch flat screen television sets, double deck-refrigerators, plasma TVs, four burner gas cookers with ovens, among other items donated by SAG Systems, Stak-Fam Co. Ltd., Osons Chemist, Palb Pharmaceuticals, Victory Enterprise and Daamas Co. Ltd.
Other sponsors included Unicom Chemists, Globus Healthcare Services, Investrade International, Lymens Pharmaceuticals and Vicdoris Pharmacy.
There was a prize for the Best Practising Midwife (Grace Owusu), Best Senior Nurse (Charlotte O. Buabeng), Best Nurse Anaesthetist (Mrs. Stella Awuah), Best Junior Nurse (Zipporah Ntekor Kukubor) and Best Senior Doctor (Dr. Martin Yao Keketsyor.)
The Best Junior Doctor award went to Dr. Angelina Ampong, while Mr. Richard Bremfi grapped the Best Finance Staff Award.
Other awards went to Messrs Bright Agyemang, Joseph Amissah, Fred Adjei, Raymond Kotoh and Richard Larbi took the Best Senior Support Staff, Best Junior Support Staff, Best Pharmacy Staff, Best Senior Allied Health Staff and Best Junior Allied Health Staff respectively.
There were also prizes for 94 members of staff who had served the hospital for 35 years and above, as at December 2008.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, gave the assurance that the management of KATH would continue to reward all hard working staff for their dedication to duty, and called for suggestions as to make the 2009 Best Staff Awards ceremony better, since management intended to expand the scope of the awards, in terms of prizes and categories.
The CEO indicated that staff motivation and welfare would continue to play a pivotal priority for management, since a trained and motivated workforce constitute the foundation for higher productivity, and an impetus for achieving the vision of becoming a medical centre of excellence, comparable to international standards.
An overwhelmed Minister of Health, Dr. George Sipa Adjah Yankey, commended the management of KATH for adopting self-motivation to recognise and appreciate hard work through various means, including Provident Fund, training programmes for staff, free transportation, supplementary pension schemes and building plots.
He said his ministry appreciated the sacrifices health workers were making for the nation, and assured them that the Ministry was exploring ways of motivating health workers, thereby restraining them from embarking on industrial actions.
The Health Minister also announced that his outfit would continue to provide better conditions for health workers, because some of them were totally unacceptable, adding that a committee was reviewing the salaries of doctors and nurses.
The Minister further said the Ministry of Health (MOH) was planning a redistribution of health workers in the country, to ensure fairness.
Dr. Sipa Yankey promised that he would ensure the completion of the Maternity Block, which was initiated in 1974, by the close of 2011, to help curb maternal deaths, and called for team work of all health workers to enhance healthcare delivery.
He cautioned against playing politics with health delivery, and urged health workers to put away political persuasions, and work as a team for national development, saying the health of the people was the wealth of the nation.
On behalf of Mr. Ernest Bediako Sampong, Managing Director of the lead sponsor of the awards, a representative of the lead sponsor said the company would continue to support health institutions which strive for excellence in health delivery.
According to the Rep, Ernest Chemists had committed about GH¢150,000 in maintaining high standards in health institutions including KATH and the Sunyani Regional hospital.
Mr. Akanbobnaab, the Best Worker, on behalf of award winners, thanked the management of KATH for the initiative in recognising professionalism.

10

Medical association urges action over doctor assaults
Jordan Times

24/07/2009

AMMAN - The Jordan Medical Association (JMA)Jordan Medical Association (JMA) on Thursday condemned a recent series of attacks against its members and urged the government to provide medical staff with protection.
Three JMAJMA members were assaulted by relatives of patients in Zarqa and Salt over the past week, prompting leaders from the newly elected JMAJMA council to establish a legal defence team from the Jordan Bar Association (JBA).
JBA President Ahmad Tbeishat said representatives of the two associations will meet with officials from the ministries of health and justice to discuss enforcing existing laws that impose tough penalties on assailants of physicians.
"We will ask for an urgent meeting with the ministers of health and justice to explore legal and logistic measures that can provide protection to doctors," Tbeishat said.
According to the penal code, an attack on on-duty doctors or healthcare providers carries a penalty of six months to one year behind bars.
Scores of doctors and nurses have been injured in attacks, many by relatives of patients.
According to JMAJMA figures, more than 40 doctors were assaulted in 2007, although association leaders believe the actual number is much higher as several cases went unreported.
They say tens of doctors and nurses are assaulted, insulted and threatened every month, but do not file complaints as such incidents might be officially considered as a brawl and result in the arrest of both the physician and the assailant.
JMAJMA officials fear that the increasing number of assaults on medical cadre will cause a brain drain from the public sector. The shortage of doctors at the Kingdom's public health facilities currently stands at 40 per cent, according to the association.

© Jordan Times 2009

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Asia & Pacific

1

Lady Health Workers Programme is the backbone of country’s health sector: Neelam Jabbar
Online News, Pakistan

27/07/2009

LAHORE: The Minister Population Welfare Punjab Neelam Jabbar Ch. has said that the government is expanding the Lady Health Workers (LHWs) Programme as the programme is the backbone of country’s health sector and it has made the most valuable contribution in implementing government’s healthcare programmes while also serving to the primary healthcare needs of the communities at their doorsteps.
While talking to various delegations, the Minister said that our government is strongly committed to facilitating an efficient, accessible and affordable health system to respond to the healthcare needs of the nation and health sector is key to the government’s agenda for social-sector development.
Neelam Jabbar Ch. said that low resources input, lack of policy framework and absence of linkages between various components of health delivery mechanism are key challenges restricting the growth and service delivery capacity of the country’s health sector and the current government has initiated the process of correcting the distortions in the health and other social sectors.
We are working on creating and strengthening linkage between structure and components of the health sector, as well as we are also revising our vertical programmes to identify weak areas and improve their efficiency scope, she maintained.
She said that the government is spending huge funds on health sector in the province for the improvement of health infrastructure and to provide standardized health care facility to the masses at grass root level, whereas, the government would also establish safe delivery centers at each union council to provide the basic healthcare requirements to mother and child even in the far-flung rural areas of the province, she concluded.

2

Responding to overpopulation threat
Pakistan Observer

24/07/2009

Aisha Tariq
Pakistan is one of the fastest growing countries in the world. In early 1994, the population of Pakistan was estimated to be 126 million, at that time we were the ninth most populous country of the world, however, land area wise ranked thirty-second among nations. Thus Pakistan has about 2 percent of the world’s population living on less than 0.7 percent of the world’s land. The population growth rate is among the world’s highest, officially estimated at 3.1 percent per year, but privately thought to be closer to 3.3 percent per year by many planners involved in population programs. According to the latest surveys Pakistan’s population has reached up to 174.59 Million, if we internationally weigh against the extensive growth rate in our population; we are ahead of Russia and very slightly behind Brazil. By the year 2020 it is expected that our population will reach 208 Million, hence curtailing our current resources. Still we have 20% of our population who is living below international poverty line earning around 1.25 $ per day.
The root cause of overpopulation is the unbalanced growth rate. In third world countries the basic awareness among the common people is lacking, which is the fundamental reason of overpopulation. Governments have very few budgets to educate the people all over the country about the disadvantages of extra ordinary birth rate. In this way majority of the people remain uneducated regarding the adequate methods of birth control. Although everyone is facing the resulted problems of overpopulation at individual level but very few people are aware regarding the proper course of action to respond to this matter. A very common trend for the people is to move towards cities from villages, in this way, rural land is remained unused and cities become crowded having high density of people per square feet. This practice not only affects the efficient operation of the system in cities but it also makes the governments to neglect the rural lands to develop. It very badly decreases the agricultural growth, resulting in the drastically over the economy of the country. When wealth is scarce and consumers are in a large amount, obviously equity in distribution of resources is always missing. This makes the people frustrated, and outcomes are very frightening, youth which is called as the life blood of a country starts involving in inappropriate ways to snatch the resources. It increases crime rate in a big deal, it has been observed that the countries which have balanced population, crime rate is very low in such regions. When people are not provided with the basic necessities, it elevates crime rate due to drug cartels and increases theft by people stealing resources to survive.
After the earthquake of October 11th, 2005, that killed 79000 people according to official death polls. It was discovered that Pakistan is situated on the most dangerous earth plate which can be affected very badly anytime due to earthquakes. Overpopulation does not allow the government to establish the cities and villages in a planned and organized way, in such condition natural disaster management agencies cannot respond to the potential loss. It is said that earthquakes does not kill the people, mismanagement kills the people which is the result of overpopulation.
Atmosphere and climate is also badly affected by overpopulation, in overpopulated areas the consumption of energy goods like, petroleum, electricity and coal is very high, which results into pollution which eventually affects the climate. Pollution badly influences on the health of people, and the hospital and other health institutions in Pakistan have very limited capacity to accommodate the patients. According to the latest analysis, in 2007 there were 85 physicians for every 100,000 persons in Pakistan. Alternatively we can say that one doctor is available for 1,225 people. In comparison to most underdeveloped countries, we a have a shortage of nurses and there are only 62,651 nurses all over the nation who are supplemented with a strong force of 96,000 Lady Health Workers (primary health care providers). According to the latest Ministry of Health Pakistan statistics, there were 13,937 health institutions in the country including 945 hospitals (with a total of 103,285 hospital beds), 4,755 dispensaries, 5,349 Basic Health Units (mostly in rural areas), 903 Mother and Child Care Centers, 562 rural health centers and 290 TB centers
When the growth rate is very high, it results in high child mortality, Seventy infants out of one thousand dies due to different reasons, which are mainly, the inadequate facilities provided in hospitals due to load of too many delivery cases, vulnerability of the child due to bad cures, lack of skilled technical staff in hospitals, lack of proper food, and the most important is the weak health of the mother.
The uncontrollably increasing population is the basic running force of this issue. Poverty highly increases the child mortality ration, an individual citizen’s poverty results in the poverty of the whole country. In frenziedly populated countries the life expectancy ratio is very low, as per the latest statistics Pakistan has 64.6 as life expectancy ratio of an individual, whereas Japan has 82.3, the difference is very clear. The major reason behind this considerable gap is the difference between the population and available resources of these two countries. Overpopulation restrains the literacy in the country, Pakistan, a developing country, has very few funds and capital for educational development. It has been 62 years since Pakistan has come into existence; still our literacy rate is below 50% which is far less than India, Sri lanka, Turkey and Brazil.
In over occupied areas unclean living conditions which are based upon water resource reduction, discharge of raw dirt and solid waste disposal increase the chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics. For many environmental and social reasons, including overcrowded living conditions, malnutrition and inadequate, inaccessible, or non-existent health care; the poor are more likely to be exposed to infectious diseases. World Population Day is an annual event, observed on July 11, which aims to elevate awareness of global population issues. The event was established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme, in 1989. It was stimulated by the public interest in Five Billion Day on July 11, 1987, the date on which the world’s population reached around five billion people.
In current year the subject matter of the world population day is “Investing in Women is a Smart Choice”. Funding in education and health for women considerably increase output of the whole mass, farming yields, and state income, all of which adds to the accomplishment of the balanced Population. Investments by governments worldwide have boosted school admission rates, and promoted the prevention of lethal diseases like malaria, tuber clauses and HIV Aids. We expect that this year this convention will bring extra ordinary attentiveness among the people of Pakistan, and we will ourselves manage out our overpopulation issue by bringing economy efficiency and effectiveness among the processes and policies.

3

'Fighting HIV/AIDS needs more holistic approach'
Times of India

31/07/2009

PUNE: Underlining the need for specialists from diverse fields like medicine, nursing, public health, sociology, psychology and economics to come together and work against HIV/AIDS, Lt Gen Pradeep Khanna, the General Officer Commanding-In-Chief, said that awareness is a key towards achieving this end.
Khanna was speaking at the inaugural function of the three-day workshop on HIV/AIDS- Facets and Challenges' that is currently underway at the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC). The workshop, which is being attended by officers from across the country, will end on August 1.
"Advancements in medical science has changed the nature of HIV/AIDS from once a death warrant to a chronic, manageable disease. But people who suffer from this disease need care and support. We also need to fight the social stigma attached to HIV/AIDS," he said. Explaining the need for awareness, Khanna cited the case of a unit that returned to India from abroad with 75 per cent of the personnel infected with HIV.
Delivering the welcome address, Lt Gen Shiv Kumar Sharma, the director and commandant of the AFMC, outlined the research work being carried out by the institute to fight the disease. "The AIDS Control Organisation in the Department of Community Medicine has been guiding the AIDS control programme in the Indian Armed Forces for a long time. The decreasing number of cases in the armed forces is a good sign," said Sharma.
Maj Gen Mandeep Singh, additional director general of the AFMC (medical research) delivered the key note address on the response of the armed forces to the disease. "The first case of HIV/AIDS in the armed forces was detected in 1991, when a soldier returned from a UN mission in Cambodia. The number of HIV positive cases though has come down to about 0.2 to 0.3 per cent for the entire force," said Singh.
Speaking of the success of the AIDS control programme, Singh said that the decline in the number of cases was the result of several successful steps, including detailed surveillance policy, setting up of a vibrant health programme, a vibrant relationship with the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) and the introduction of Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) with specific criteria, among others. "Today, AIDS is no longer the top cause of morbidity. In fact, we are compared with the US army when it comes to the low rate of HIV cases," he said, but warned that it should not be a reason for complacency. "We are also planning on reworking on our AIDS policy in the next fortnight," Singh said.

4

Gates foundation donates $41 mn for infant-maternal care in India
Business Standard, India

30/07/2009

Yoshita Singh/PTI
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant of $41 million to an international humanitarian organisation to work toward improving maternal, newborn and child health in six countries, including India
The grant would be provided to 'Concern Worldwide' over a period of five years and support development and testing of delivery of maternal, newborn and child health projects in six countries
The initiative would start in India, Malawi and Sierra Leone, while the other three countries would be decided later.
Ireland-headquartered Concern would work with a broad spectrum of people, including mid-level and junior health workers, academia, civil society, private sector and community members in the three countries and evaluate how to reach out and provide help to those in need.
"Even the most effective health interventions can only save lives if they reach the people who need them. Concern Worldwide's commitment to seeking innovation from diverse, non-traditional sources will be a key ingredient in the success of this programme," Director of the Integrated Health Solutions Development programme at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Jaime Sepzlveda said in a statement.
Referring to the need to provide quality healthcare to mothers and infants, Concern said two-thirds of mothers and children in India and Malawi lack essential health services such as vaccinations, skilled care at birth and good nutrition.
In Sierra Leone, more than 25 per cent of children die before reaching their fifth birthday, while in Malawi, one in every 18 women dies during pregnancy or childbirth.
Overburdened health systems or harmful practices such as discontinuing breastfeeding too early are critical obstacles in delivering essential maternal and child care.
"This project is all about discovering and testing new ideas. It requires prudent risk taking and a relentless commitment to improving the state of our world," Concern Worldwide CEO Tom Arnold said.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation received the Indira Gandhi prize for peace disarmament and development for its philanthropic activities.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates received the award in India last week from President Pratibha Patil. Gates has said that India, which faces some of the toughest health problems in the world, needs to increase its healthcare spending to eliminate diseases in the country.
The Foundation has been working in India in the field of health and development, especially HIV/AIDS

5

Australia’s Oral health ranked second worst
Medical Devices& Equipment, Australia
30/07/2009
AUSTRALIA’S oral health status has ranked second worst in the OECD Community Services and Health Industries face skills crisis in oral health.
Despite the National Oral Health Plan being five years into its eight year plan gaping holes still remain in how dental care is delivered to Australians.
"Today's children, particularly in regional areas, have the same limited access to dental care that children 100 years ago might have experienced. In fact, according to the National Advisory Committee on Oral Health, the oral health status of Australian adults ranks second worst in the OECD." Explained Di Lawson, CEO of the Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council. "
It is unbelievable, and quite frankly unacceptable for Australians to have lower standards of oral health than almost any other developed country. All Australians should have access to a quality healthcare system - and this includes their teeth." She said.
This month the Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council released its 2009 Environmental Scan providing a snapshot of the key issues facing the Community Services and Health industries in terms of skills shortages and development issues that are impacting the care levels of every Australian.
Oral health, disability careers and quality Family Day Care services top the list of the most urgent areas of concern.
The Scan provides an analysis of the enormous workforce challenges ahead and steps the Community Services & Health Industry Skills Council is putting in place to assist the industries in responding to these challenges.
The 2009 Environmental Scan was developed by the ISC in partnership with a research team at Sydney University's Workplace Research Centre headed by Dr John Buchanan
"The number of oral health practitioners falls short of the numbers required to meet current need, especially in the public sector, rural and remote areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Unless we urgently rethink the reliance of only certain oral health professionals and occupations being able to perform routine tasks, we face enormous challenges.
"Other primary health care workers, such as community nurses, Aboriginal Health and Torres Strait Islander Workers and aged care workers to name but a few are more than capable of playing an active role in the promotion and prevention of oral health." Di stressed.
The Community Services & Health Industry Skills Council is leading a national oral health workforce project in 2009/10 to support and enable implementation of new skills to a broader base of health care practitioners.