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com

African Medical Students Association

at International University of Africa (AMSA-IUA)

2nd International Health Conference January 2014

Theme:

Challenges facing health service providers in Africa

Proposal

October 2013.

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Introduction
Africa is the worlds second largest and second most populous continent, covering about 30.2 million km2. It accounts for about 15% of human population. Africa is burdened with many diseases and especially the big three (HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis) and these have cost the continent a lot. Each year, Africa is losing more than 11 million children to preventable diseases as a result of inequalities in health and development and problems are worst where resources are least available; those who need more care have the least access (Gwatkin et al., 2000). The biggest causes of morbidity in SSA are malaria, respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, intestinal worms, HIV/AIDS, anemia and malnutrition. Also in addition there is a rapid increase in lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes making end stage renal disease a health problem that cannot be ignored. More than 50% of African populations do not have access to modern health facilities and 40% have no access to safe drinking water and sanitation. High levels of maternal, child, and infant mortality and low rates of immunization, are symptomatic of the gross neglect of Africas rural communities (Dan Kaseje 2006) Human resource crisis in Africa is caused by many factors such as inadequate production in some countries, inability to hire in others, brain drain, poor motivation, conflict of interest, corruption, and misuse of resourcesincluding timein most countries. The African Medical Students Association at the International University of Africa (AMSA IUA) is a body which collects the African Students studying in the different faculties of Medicine and Health Sciences in the University. AMSA - IUA has the mission of empowering trainees in the medical and allied health sciences fields with knowledge and skills that will help them make reasonable decisions and actions through sharing, education, communication, training and advocacy for policy changes on medical and health issues affecting African communities in particular and the world at large. AMSA - IUA aims at orienting the African students and creating awareness among them, of the health status of the continent, with the hope that each member shall return home with the responsibility of contributing towards the salvation of our beloved continent from its present health crises. The second international health conference is aiming at enlightening the challenges facing health service providers in Africa and their overall consequences, and to suggest possible solutions toward addressing these problems.

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General objective
To enlighten the challenges facing health service providers in Africa and their overall consequences, in order to suggest possible recommendations.

Specific objectives
1. To point out the challenges facing overall healthcare practice and practitioners in

Africa; 2. To look into the consequences of these challenges; 3. To highlight the impact of these challenges on overall health of the continent; 4. To suggest possible solutions and/or recommendations towards solving these challenges.

Subthemes

1. Challenges:
a. Language/regional diversification; Africa has more than a billion inhabitants distributed among 54 countries, 9 territories and its indwellers speak about 2000 languages (UNESCO). This situation poses a huge challenge to healthcare providers in the continent especially to those doctors who move to other parts of the continent; and therefore places a barrier in the delivery of adequate and efficient services. b. Health awareness; when it comes to the simple health measures needed to live a healthy lifestyle, the average African is some pace behind. This is a challenge as not only the healthcare provider is needed to attain a state of health an understanding of the simple health measures by the targeted population of healthcare delivery is critical in completing the process of service delivery. c. Incompetence in health service providers; Healthcare delivery in Africa has been seeing and facing numerous setbacks among which is incompetence of the healthcare providers themselves. This has a link with the increasing shortage of healthcare providers that forces an adjustment in training and provision of healthcare in the continent. Some important points to consider include: Equipments and working conditions; Staff qualification in comparison to international standards.

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d. Traditional beliefs, behaviors, taboo, and habits; up to 80% of some African countries population depend on traditional medicine for primary healthcare. As this dominance is huge, concerns are being raised on the challenges traditional medical practices and other beliefs, behaviors, taboos and habits pose. Diversity, safety, effectiveness and quality, knowledge and sustainability, patient safety and use these are all issues of concern surrounding the traditional health practices. The WHO promotes the use of traditional medicines but so long the above mentioned challenges are not addressed, traditional medicine and other health practices (especially the bad traditional health practices) still remain a threat to the development and advancement in modern medicine in Africa. Some important points to consider include: Diversity and distribution of the traditional medical practice and medicines; Safety of use of the medicines; Effectiveness and quality of these medicines since a sound knowledge of human physiology and pathology is critical prior to prescription; Knowledge and sustainability of both the medicines and the traditional herbalists; Patient safety and use since dosage is hardly considered during prescription and administration. e. Government policies in health practice; governments across the continent have different policies concerning the delivery of healthcare to the citizens and these policies may be favorable or not to the healthcare providers. This raises the issue of the importance of the participation of healthcare workers in policy making. Some important points to consider include: Government policies towards medical practice; The roles played by healthcare professionals in policy making. f. Poor regulation and supervision of healthcare practice; even well planned and arranged settings of healthcare delivery that have no adequate supervision and follow-ups pose a threat to the success of that setting. Poor supervision of healthcare delivery system and providers has many outcomes like negligence, laziness, failure to carry out the task one is being assigned

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and so on. Adequate supervision of health care service delivery is still an issue to the practice in Africa. Some important points to consider include: Health information systems; Health records, statistics and figures. g. Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) challenge; even the big three diseases (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria) are a hard nut to crack as long as Africa is concerned. The NTDs, which are a group of tropical infections which are especially endemic in low-income populations in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, have placed a huge burden and impact on the overall health of the continent. Many of these diseases have known cures but still much needs to be done in addressing and eradicating these diseases. Some important points to consider include: List of the major NTDs based on countries and their impact on the overall well being of each country; Efforts by governments, organizations, foreign aid, communities and individuals in addressing these problems; The reasons why these problems still remain a challenge to the countries where they are endemic. h. Human Resources for health (HRH) and Doctor patient ratio; the shortage of healthcare providers has created a wide gap in the doctor-patient ratio and the figures are far from the threshold drawn down by the WHO. Many factors are behind the deterioration in the number of healthcare providers that is creating a wider gap in the doctor-patient ratio in Africa. Some important points to consider include: Figure of the human resources for health for each country; International doctor patient ratio for each country; Efforts by each country to fill the gap for its doctor patient ratio. i. Conflicts and instability; over the last 15 years, African disasters due to conflicts have accelerated in comparison with those due to natural causes and epidemics. All over the world, violence is second only to respiratory diseases as a cause of lost of life expectancy (Nawamagbe A. O.). Presence of violent conflict is negatively correlated with public health outcomes
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compared to countries that do not experience conflict. Countries experiencing severe conflict have significantly higher infant mortality rates, lower total life expectancy, and increased fertility rates compared with countries not experiencing severe violent conflict, independent of poverty and HIV rates (David R. D and Joel N. K). Some important points to consider include: The means by which conflicts in each region/country affects health of that region/country; Diseases and health conditions that have been observed to spread due to conflicts and human displacement in each of the regions/countries where there is conflict and instability; The impact of conflicts and instability on the overall health of a region/country with these problems.

2. Consequences of the challenges:

a. Brain Drain; Brain drain (or human capital flight), is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. As serious as the consequences of brain drain are for the overall development of the African continent, the health sector is particularly affected; indeed, the desperate shortage of health professionals is the most serious obstacle as Africa tries to fight AIDS, NTDs, and support other health programs. In several countries, the brain drain of medical professionals is threatening the very existence of the countrys health services. Some important points to consider include: Push factors for brain drain; Pull factors; Human resources lost to brain drain on country bases. b. Deterioration of health Indicators; figure and statistics of the health indicators in many countries of Africa are not so welcoming. This also is attributed to many different causative factors. Mortality and morbidity rate figures and the DALY (Disability Adjusted Life Years) statistics for Africa are worrying. The consequences of the overall health systems inadequacy has given rise to this problem.

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Some important points to consider include: Health indicators for countries over a given time period (2007-2012); Comparing the figures with acceptable standards and also to find out whether the figures are deteriorating over the years they were collected; The means by which the aforementioned challenges affect the figures. c. Health tourism/International health travel; inadequate healthcare provision systems and many other factors have driven the many out of the continent in search of better attention to healthcare service. This is causing a huge drain of the continents resources in the search of better health which otherwise should be provided at home and save the millions of dollars spent in international health travel. Some important points to consider include: Resources lost to international health travel; Factors leading to international health travel for each country. d. Inefficiency in healthcare provision is a consequence comprising of many factors like incompetency, poor supervision and regulation of healthcare service profession, and others. The inefficient healthcare delivered to patients may have adverse effects on the quality of the life of the victims of this consequence. Some important point(s) to consider include: The means by which inefficient healthcare service provision affects quality of life in each of the countries.

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COMMITTEES:

COMMITTEES

Organizing

Executive

Scientific
Research Editorial

Welfare Budget/finance Publicity Media and Information External Relations

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DUTIES OF COMMITTEES 1. The Scientific committee shall be responsible for:

Retrieving of grey data researches from the respective health authorities of the participating countries in the conference; Rearrange and categorize these data to meet the objectives of the conference (through the editorial arm of the committee); Selection of those members to represent the entire AMSA members during presentations at the conference; Select the countries and regions that will take part in the conference; Final research works of from the editorial board of the scientific committee should be forwarded to the Media and Information Office for final editing and preparing it for publication of the conference proceedings; Collaborating with the external relations and welfare committees in listing the guests from health authorities from respective countries.

2. The Welfare committee shall be responsible for:

Overall organization and welfare of the conference; Collaborate with the scientific committee to sketch the schedule for execution of the conference: time-tables, days, presentation timings etc; Taking care of the welfare of our invited guests (both local and international) throughout the conference; Follow-ups of flight details of our international guests, book hotel reservations, transportation etc; Shall coordinate with scientific committee and executive arm of AMSA to organize the exhibition (scientific, traditional and administrative) during the days of the conference.

3. The Budget and Finance committee shall be responsible for:

Drawing the detailed budget plan for the conference based on micro-budgets from the other committees; Providing financial advice to the other committees to ensure a cost effective and proper utilization of resources; Follow-up for donations (financial) and retrieving those funds made in favor of the conference.

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4. The Publicity committee shall be responsible for:

Publicize the conference to the general public; Collaboration with the external relations in distributing of invitation letters and follow-ups for the invited guests to the conference. Taking of all publications and stationary requirements of the conference to the printing press to produce hard copies of these materials to be provided by the Media and Information Office.

5. The Media and Information Office shall be responsible for:

Creating the layouts of the publication(s) of the conference; Designing of the soft copies of the stationery needed for the conference: files, jotters, posters, banners, brochures, stands etc; Shall update the webpage and social media pages of AMSA with data for the conference; Collaborating with publicity and external relations in publicizing of the conference in the external Media.

6. The External Relations committee shall be responsible for:

Manning all relations involving AMSA and external bodies, associations, organizations, companies etc in favor of the conference; Collaborating with the scientific and external relations in inviting the guests of the conference.

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List of committee heads and their contacts:

S/N 1 2 3 4 5 6 NAMES Nizam Lawal Alhassan Amin Tukur Sulaiman Umar Sulaiman Umar Abdulrahman Mansur Tsiga Umar Muhammad Sani Hussein Musa Toyongo COMMITTEE Scientific Welfare Budget/Finance Publicity Media and Information External relations PHONE NUMBER 0928954844 0929328426 0926989303 0926457511 0927349889 0923358153

The entire committees listed above are coordinated and supervised by:
NAME Issa Aboubacer Souleymane Ntambi Huzairu POST IN AMSA-IUA President Secretary General PHONE NUMBER 0993338955 0926901780

END NOTES: This work is prepared by the proposal committee assigned by the Executive council members of AMSA-IUA, led by the president. Any arising matters concerning this proposal should be forwarded to the office of AMSA IUA president, who will lead the proposal team in addressing these issues.

Umar Muhammad Sani Head of Proposal Team

AMSA IUA...lets join hands to save Africa