Growing up in an impoverished township has always motivated Dr Avuyile Mbangatha, an award-winning medical doctor, changemaker, trailblazer and 2024 Forbes BLK recipient, to tackle various socio-economic issues that communities face and that led him to his career in rural health. His passion for rural health came after he developed a fertiliser and research that aimed to enhance food security and reduce poverty in rural settlements. This initiative earned him a spot among the 2015 Top 30 World Young Innovators in Pittsburgh, USA.
Before the unique challenges of a pandemic, Africa’s healthcare system was a challenge. When I worked as a doctor in a public hospital, as I walked into the hospital for my shift, I would look down the passage and there was a long queue of patients seated as closely together as possible. They had all suffered some sort of trauma and needed assistance. Some of them were elderly people with a chronic illness or they were there for their monthly checkups. The benches were full, the stretchers in the unit were also occupied, and some patients had flowed over to the chairs and wheelchairs. Other patients put blankets on the floor for seating to be comfortable. When I was on call, I would see anywhere from 40 to 60 patients a day. These are the conditions we face and work under because of the lack of resources.
At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was completing my final year in Medicine at the University of Stellenbosch. Immediately we all became frontline workers – screening COVID-19 patients while managing patients with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and diabetes. It really changed the way we were taught medicine. Understanding that COVID-19 had adverse effects not only on healthcare, but various sectors of the economy I decided to focus on the issue of access to education and food insecurity through the Breaking Barriers Campaign – an initiative which aspired to address food insecurity, health, and poverty. Starting my career in the middle of a global pandemic did not discourage me. In fact, it only reiterated the urgent need for healthcare workers to be even more aware of personal safety when treating medical patients. It is only when I am protected that I can help other people.
From these experiences, I learned that despite the Department of Health’s world-class policies and protocols, the pandemic emphasised all the already existing difficulties and introduced a new dynamic. We needed a system that better supported healthcare workers. We also needed funding that addressed the crisis of access to PPE and other required equipment, as well as the shortage of drugs or other kinds of supplies.
A healthy future for the country and the continent cannot be achieved without putting the health and wellbeing of its population at the centre of public policy. The COVID-19 pandemic and the current rise of Mpox expose the strain and flaws of our health systems. The lack of funding makes it difficult for health institutions to build a good defence force against any pandemic that could come.
The two pandemics have offered us great lessons in health system preparedness and resilience: We need to have a greater focus on predicting responses, solidarity within and across countries is non-negotiable, flexibility in managing responses is imperative, and renewed efforts for combined actions should be the new normal for the future.
A healthy Africa is a continent where the health, education, and well-being of each citizen are prioritised and sustained through its own resources.
Excerpt from Africa-ONE Voice by the ONE Campaign.
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