‘Good leadership is crucial to building a healthy nation’. That was the message from public health doctor Dr Mary Mkandawire at the African Biblical Leadership forum in Lilongwe today.
Her call came against shocking figures for health care across Africa. Some 3.2 million people die of HIV-related illnesses annually in Sub-Saharan Africa. The virus alone has left 30 million orphans.
Some 1 in 16 women die in childbirth, and one in every six babies does not live to see his or her first birthday.
Dr Mkandawire spoke of working in a slum in Blantyre, Malawi. ‘Every week children were brought in to the medical centre when the walls of their homes collapsed on them,’ she said.
With no running water or sewage, the streets were treacherous places, she said. ‘We were never sure what we were stepping in.’
She said that she became ‘more and more frustrated’ in her attempts to help the children of the slum as they needed more than the anti-malarial treatments she was able to supply.
‘The poorer people are, the sicker they get and the earlier they die,’ she said.
Her call for better leadership to improve health care across Africa followed the statement yesterday from anti-corruption campaigner, Patrick Lumumba, that ‘corruption is a way of life in Africa’.
ABLI
