Becoming more of a Newarker…

Today (November 02), my former co-worker at Baylor then, based in UK, asked me, and “how are things three months after being decorated as a fellow”. I said wow! You are kidding me; you mean I have spent three months already with Global Health Corp? He said yes, and I did my arithmetic and found that indeed it is almost three months now. So if the program was a 12weeks fellowship, by now I would have been thinking of flying through Dulles International Airport either via Newark or La Guardia. At least I can remember the exits.

Sometimes, you feel like writing something that needs to be shared. But on second thought, you find yourself saying no, there is nothing here that is “news worthy”. News worthy, here is used in a context of what has been happening in Malawi for a couple of years now. It all started when the head of state left the country for an international summit. Upon arrival from the sojourn he called for a press conference with the home paparazzi. He had taken his time to outline what engagements he had accomplished while outside. Like the pledges and promises that were made by some powerful world leaders. It was said that some of the pledges were fiscal support to our national budget. Some of you have already started saying, wow! That might have been a fruitful meeting for the big kahuna of Malawi. Lest we forget, to pledge or to use the biblical term “promise’ is one thing and fulfillment of such is another thing. Under this guise, the paparazzi thought, may be it may not be relevant to ask the president what he had outlined because it was cogently done and he had promised to give them a communiqué to that effect.

Now what follows, question time by the press. Mr. President, “we have heard that you went on vacation under the auspices of the multi – National Corporation that has interests in opening some mines in some parts of the country. During your inaugural you promise the nation that your leadership will implement zero – tolerance on corruption. Having this mind Sir, does this not amount to corruption?” The day that has started well was seen tumbling before the pressmen. As a result, the president got annoyed by such kind of the question. He pondered and wondered why of all issues they would ask him such instead of asking more about the pledges and perhaps at least some praises. “You the Malawian press is very sick. Instead of wanting to know more what I have brought for the nation, you are asking me such no sense. I am calling off this conference.” Indeed the conference was called off. That was the first time the conference was called off, of course in my life time.

At this point, questions, stones and every weapon are being thrown at this. As I can understand this there is nothing to do with global health equity and justice. It appears there is more political undertone to it than it is to health. Mind you, even the health systems that we are trying to navigate, or advocate for, the politics of the nations have much stake to it than anyone else. Therefore, it is good to understand what it takes to convince leadership, a little of praise will make them feel good. But it should not be overdone as it is done in most countries east of the GMT.

A couple of weeks ago, Maggie posted “No longer a fly on the wall” in which she documented some issues on Health Literacy, both at the University Hospital and nationally. She said, Health literacy is defined as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions” (Health People 2010). This is the basic definition that both Department of Health and Human Services and Institute of Medicine (IoM) agree on. I and Maggie agreed also to make use of this definition whenever we are presenting issues on Health Literacy to the leadership of the hospital at UMDNJ.

We had a six week period of observing, sticking ourselves to the wall as flies would do and assume that we are not doing anything that should jeopardize the consultation process between the provider and the patient. (The use of “we” here reflects more of team work than anything else; it has to be regarded in that way). Of course, she said what are the benefits for implementing health literacy initiatives and for that you might as well consider reading it again. All our observations, literature review of some white papers, peer reviewed journals have been presented to the practice managers in October. We wait the convening of the executive leadership meeting on November 12 to present the material to them. From there I assume will be on the operations side of the Health Literacy.

What else should I share about the Health Literacy? That’s where my earlier observation comes in. The kinda of feeling where you censure oneself, that it may not be necessary. I will definitely find something to share next time.

For time being, I have enjoyed the “Super Size Me” some of you might have forgotten about the movie. If you need it I may ask my good friend Maggie to find one for you. I should also say I have come to learn about some American social issues through watching a number of movies. So “super size me” came out topping the list. Guess what, I already had a negative feeling about the MacDonalds, Burger King (BK), not because you would not find them in Malawi, but the junkness of the food. So what this movie did to me is to augment that earlier predisposition on the food issue.