AMSA-IUA: Second Conference Proposal (without budget) _ Jan 2014

8/13/2019 AMSA-IUA: Second Conference Proposal (without budget) _ Jan 2014

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AMSA IUA...letsjoin hands to save Africa

www.iua.edu.sd/amsa

[email protected]

[email protected]

African Medical Students Association

at International University of Africa (AMSA-IUA)

2ndInternational Health Conference

January 2014

Theme:

Challenges facing health service providers in Africa

Proposal

October 2013.
http://www.iua.edu.sd/amsahttp://www.iua.edu.sd/amsamailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.iua.edu.sd/amsa


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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 childrento 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 andmalnutrition. 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 healthproblem 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 willhelp 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 atorienting 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 inAfrica;

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 tolive 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 Africahas been seeing and facing numerous setbacks among which is incompetence

of thehealthcare 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 someAfrican 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.


Diversity and distribution of the traditional medical practice andmedicines;

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 thetraditional herbalists;

Patient safety and use since dosage is hardly considered duringprescription and administration.

e. Government policies in health practice; governments across the continenthave 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.


Government policies towards medical practice; The roles played by healthcare professionals in policy making.

f. Poor regulation and supervision of healthcare practice; even wellplanned 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.


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.


List of the major NTDs based on countries and their impact on theoverall well being of each country;

Efforts by governments, organizations, foreign aid, communities andindividuals in addressing these problems;

The reasons why these problems still remain a challenge to thecountries where they are endemic.

h. Human Resources for health (HRH) and Doctor patient ratio; theshortage 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.


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 toconflicts 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).


The means by which conflicts in each region/country affects health ofthat region/country;

Diseases and health conditions that have been observed to spread dueto 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 aregion/country with these problems.

2. Consequences of the challenges:a. BrainDrain;Braindrain(or humancapitalflight), 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.


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 healthindicators 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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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 healthcareprovision 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.


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 manyfactors 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 affectsquality 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 committeeshall 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 duringpresentations 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 theguests from health authorities from respective countries.

2. The Welfare committeeshall 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 hotelreservations, transportation etc;

Shall coordinate with scientific committee and executive arm of AMSA toorganize the exhibition (scientific, traditional and administrative) during the

days of the conference.

3. The Budget and Finance committeeshall 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 effectiveand proper utilization of resources;

Follow-up for donations (financial) and retrieving those funds made in favorof the conference.


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List of committee heads and their contacts:

S/N NAMES COMMITTEE PHONE NUMBER

1 Nizam Lawal Alhassan Scientific 0928954844

2 Amin Tukur Sulaiman Welfare 0929328426

3 Umar Sulaiman Umar Budget/Finance 09269893034 Abdulrahman Mansur Tsiga Publicity 0926457511

5 Umar Muhammad Sani Media and Information 0927349889

6 Hussein Musa Toyongo External relations 0923358153

The entire committees listed above are coordinated and supervised by:

NAME POST IN AMSA-IUA PHONE NUMBER

Issa Aboubacer Souleymane President 0993338955

Ntambi Huzairu Secretary General 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: Second Conference Proposal (without budget) _ Jan 2014

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