Tamas Fülöp Award - The network - Towards Unity For Health

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Member and organisational News Messages from the executive committee To learn more about the personal beliefs, motivation and goals of our EC Members, we have invited Ian Cameron to share his thoughts with us. EC Intelligence: Ian Cameron In April 2008 the Australian Government health systems, and at all levels including held a 2020 Summit. The planners invited policy makers, practitioners and health or- 1000 people who were described as Aus- ganisations, as well as academics and com- tralia’s brightest and best, to spend an un- munity. I think that since the merger, we funded weekend discussing what Australia have not taken full advantage of the op- should look like in 2020, and what needed portunities offered by the inclusion of to be done to get there. Streams included TUFH, and we still have a chance to maxi- such areas as productivity, governance, so- mise these opportunities. cial inclusion, creativity, health, rural communities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Is- Recently I was talking with a wise and lander peoples, security, and the economy. eminent doctor about rural health work- J U L Y 2 0 0 8 I was honoured to be one of those selected to attend. In many ways it reminded me of a Network: TUFH Conference. There were few plena- force. He had also been involved for many years in Aboriginal health and in general practice education. While we talked he asked me “where did we go wrong” And we have gone wrong. Our rural health Dr. Ian Cameron The Network: TUFH is widely known, but we could be better at letting people know N E W S L E T T E R N U M B E R 0 1 | V O L U M E 2 7 ries, and those few addressed some of the bigger issues. Our groups focussed not on what was wrong, but what was needed. The thoughts were diverse and often ‘out of the square’. Like a Network: TUFH Conference, it had no defined ending, but left participants and the Government with a plethora of thoughts for the future. It was fun. One of the great strengths of The Network: TUFH has always been this inclusion and sharing of thoughts, without anyone pushing their thought as a single path to make the system work. The Network: TUFH recognises and celebrates diversity. From its beginnings in academic-community partnership, it has acknowledged that health workforce throughout the world is small and declining. Yet our education and training effort and expertise are increasing. Reflecting on his question, I think it in many ways parallels the directions that are open in The Network: TUFH. Our focus on education has helped to equip a potential health workforce for their future, but we sometimes have neglected the work environment they may go into. This is where I think a greater uptake of the TUFH elements will add immense value. For me the future of The Network: TUFH combines more of the same actions with more concentration on health systems. The conferences are marvellous; often the thought of the next one is what helps to how we do things. This particularly applies to future funders of Network: TUFH activities. I think that a short published strategic plan that includes what we do, who we do it with, how we do it and how it is funded would be of immense value in adding to our profile. All these strategies are framed in a context that it is the people involved who make The Network: TUFH what it is. We need to continue to acknowledge the vision and leadership, the participation and work of all our people from Conference attendees to the Secretariat. We need to support the students and hopefully keep them within the Network: TUFH community as they graduate and move into their own work. changes will largely come from outside the keep me going. We need to add to that the And we need to ensure that the Network: health sector, but that we all have our role wider partnership theme. This has already TUFH community remains one that cares, to play and to share. However, The Net- been happening with closer ties to colle- shares, develops and is enjoyable. work: TUFH has for many years concentrat- giate organisations including Wonca, the ed on the education side of development. Wonca Rural Working Party and the Wonca Ian Cameron | Executive Committee Africa regional group. The recent co-signed Member; CEO NSW Rural Doctors Network The merging of The Network with TUFH editorial in the British Medical Journal on Email: icameron@nswrdn.com.au gave exciting possibilities to the new or- vertical health funding is a great example. ganisation in moving beyond an academic The ongoing relationship with GHETS is focus to being more inclusive of others in another. 26
TASKFORCES 15by2015: Quality Healthcare for All The Network: TUFH is one of the organisations involved in the 15by2015 campaign. The campaign has been officially launched with the publication of an editorial in the British Medical Journal on March 1, 2008 ( De Maeseneer et al., 2008. Funding for Primary Healthcare in Developing Countries. 336:518-519). Dr. Khalifa Elmusharaf was awarded with the 2007 Tamas Fülöp Award 15by2015 is a campaign calling for all major global health donors to allocate 15% of all their grants towards strengthening the primary healthcare system of the country they are working in. The target date is the same as with the globally known and used eight millennium development goals: 2015. With 15by2015 we want to specifically target healthcare and make you and all influencing stakeholders aware of an adequate strategy to improve healthcare. Quality healthcare - accessible and affordable - is a right for all; most everybody agrees on this, but the way to reach this is not always clear. The positive news is that financial support to improve healthcare in developing countries has increased seriously in the last years, about 26% between 1997 and 2002. However, the vast majority of this aid was allocated to disease specific projects (vertical programmes) rather than to broad-based investments (horizontal programmes) such as primary healthcare services. Vertical programmes improve healthcare, but only for small groups of people with specific diseases. Some people receive good care, others remain untreated because there are no doctors, nurses or medication available. Furthermore, salaries of healthcare providers working for donor-funded vertical programmes are often two to four times that of equally trained Government workers in primary healthcare. This induces an internal brain-drain (loss of well-trained people where they are most needed) where local healthcare workers move from their work in health centres and hospitals to the better paid projects of donor organisations. Primary healthcare cuts across diseases in a systemic way. Investing in improving the quality of primary healthcare (infrastructure, human resources and equipment) is a broad-based and sustainable investment that should be accessible and affordable for all. For example, if good primary healthcare were available in the 42 countries accounting for about 90% of child deaths world-wide, 63% of these deaths could be prevented. The most prevalent health care problems in developing countries are respiratory illnesses, diarrhoea and complications of labour and delivery. These can and must be treated within the same primary healthcare framework that deals with diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Please sign our petition in support of improving the primary healthcare around the world: www.15by2015.org Tribute to… At the occasion of the Network: TUFH’s 25 th anniversary, the Executive Committee installed the Tamas Fülöp Award (TFA). Tamas Fülöp, who was in a leadership role at WHO Headquarters in Geneva at the time, took the initiative to establish The Network in 1979. The TFA honours a person/organisation/institution/group for outstanding contributions to The Network: TUFH. The award consists, apart from a certificate, of an economy ticket to travel to a future Network: TUFH Conference (to be filled in within three years from the year of award), space in the Newsletter and a world-wide announcement through our hlt-net Alert. During the General Meeting in Kampala, Uganda in September 2007 the 2 nd TFA was presented to a very honoured Dr. Khalifa Elmusharaf from Sudan. Dr. Elmusharaf, a 32-year old medical doctor, has been an active participant and contributor at the Network: TUFH Conferences; he was a member of the Poster Evaluation Committee; he was also national coordinator of Sudanese participants in Australia; in Vietnam he was a member of the Conference Evaluation Committee, and he won the Best Poster Award; in Belgium he organised and co-facilitated a workshop titled Practical skills for students and young health professional to setup community projects; he is an active member of Evaluation Committee of the Women and Health taskforce; he presented also several posters. Dr. Elmusharaf has been relevant to the advancement of health in his community, in different areas including medical education, medical students’ activities, health service delivery, health researches and community charity work. He established and led many students and medical organisations and conducted workshops and training courses concerning leadership developing programme. He organised and participated in more than 30 medical trips to rural areas of Sudan, which included medical students training, charity medical services, health education and promotion and small projects implementation, which was of grate value. J U L Y 2 0 0 8 N E W S L E T T E R N U M B E R 0 1 | V O L U M E 2 7 27
Page 1 and 2: The Network towards unity for healt
Page 3 and 4: FOREWORD Networking and Linking pai
Page 5 and 6: A Cow for a Women’s Prison in Uga
Page 7 and 8: POSITION PAPER The Network: TUFH Ex
Page 9 and 10: IMPROVING HEALTH HEALTH AUTHORITIES
Page 11 and 12: Nutritional Status of Children of W
Page 13 and 14: ily doctors will be able to decide
Page 15 and 16: INTEGRATING MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEA
Page 17 and 18: INTERNATIONAL HEALTH PROFESSIONS ED
Page 19 and 20: Interprofessional Education: A Pers
Page 21 and 22: Embedding Indigenous Perspective in
Page 23 and 24: STUDENTS’ COLUMN STUDENTS’ SPEA
Page 25: several electives, so a lot of the
Page 29 and 30: Projects Related to Care for the El
Page 31 and 32: ABOUT OUR MEMBERS A Passion for...

Tamas Fülöp Award - The network - Towards Unity For Health

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