100daysincongo-blog

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Public health will miss you. Rest in power Sir!

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Investing myself in my twenties

Hey guys, welcome to another post in my quest of finding satisfaction in my field (public health), being settled in my spirit and living my best life and oh trying to text everybody back lol. Its been a hectic week for me as I am preparing to attend a global health fund meeting with my boss next week, getting my reports done and trying to impress people who can potentially give me a permanent job.

I just quickly wanted to share with you some things I do for personal growth and how I am investing myself in my twenties. I honestly feel there is a lot more I have to do to be a better human and basically improve myself as a person in my twenties. But I am still work in progress and so that is totally fine.

Listening to podcasts and ted talks

I recently joined the Podcasts family and I don’t know why I waited so long to listen to Podcast. I get so much inspiration listening to very relatable content and feeding my brain with information without having to do too much reading. I get lots of health topics, high epidemiological public health issues for my blog and everyday useful conversations from listening to podcasts from UN, BBC Tedtalks daily etc

Starting a blog

So in my 4th or 5th week working at WHO Afro I just made a quick decision to start a blog and write about my Congo experience generally and my work at Afro specifically. I just thought it would be interesting to do so but I have come to realize that writing my blog brings me a lot of satisfaction as a person. As I talk about my struggles, wins, educate my audience on health and well being etc, it compels me to read because I always have to research about my content and make sure am getting my message across effectively. It has improved my writing and communication skills. it has also helped me Identify my voice and opinions about public health topics and life in general.

Reading a book every two weeks

I honestly don’t religiously do this as life gets in the way sometimes but its a very great way to increase my vocabulary and keep my brain active and it also helps me with my narratives. How to start my post with interesting preambles etc.

Keeping a prayer journal

Just going back and reading my prayer journal always gives me so much to be grateful for. I will share the details about how I do it with you in a separate post. It is very important for personal and spiritual growth and a great way to bank (pray for things I perhaps don’t immediately need) my prayers.

Taking risk

I have always been very fearful of unknown outcomes and will take zero risk for anything. Not spontaneous at all as my life is very calculated. But things almost never happen when and how I want them to. So why not take the risk and do things outside of my comfort zone. Like go to Congo (post conflict country which still has some sort of rebel activity going on), invest in a business etc.

Reading a scientific paper a day

Hopefully my first scientific paper will be published soon (I will keep you posted) on Access and use of point of care testing in Africa (diagnostics). I have recently subscribed to academia.edu which sends me scientific research papers to read. As I plan to write more papers for publication in future, it gives me ideas in places where there are knowledge gaps, broadens my scope of interest and what to write about and increases my public health library. 

Fighting health inequities

Working in Health Systems at Afro made me appreciate the scope and seriousness of inequalities and inequities in health around the world. In my little corner with what I have learnt and still learning in Health Systems, advocating for universal health coverage in every way I can brings me a lot of satisfaction and fulfilment as a person.

Taking online courses

I didn't know there were so many free courses online until I was looking for a short course to do a while back. So many of them! You know am an advocate for free things lol. But yeah even if I have to pay for them and I can afford them, why not?. I usually look out for ones that give out certificates and do them and add them to my resume.

Forgiveness

I have come to realize that learning the act of forgiveness is for ones own good. I admit that have struggled with forgiving people in the past and I have had to specifically talk to God about it. I must say it is very liberating. Knowing you have nothing against them and moving on with what is more important.

Travel

I wish that I could borrow a million dollars from my future money and travel around the world. Unfortunately I can’t but I can do it on a budget. Its good to explore and take off your life every once a while and rest. Have time to reflect on your life and learn new things. So until I get my money right, I do it on a tight budget. I will share with you in another post on how my friends and I did an Europe tour on a budget.

Find yourself a mentor

Its important you have people to look up to and build some sort of relationship with them. People who can support you, give you advise and help you develop yourself. I currently have a couple of people who inspire me, encourage me to push harder and do better for myself.

“In your twenties find a balance between hustle and rest. travel the world, battle your demons, set up a business, find people who value your heart and don’t live in the past”

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Attended a “public health wedding “. It was a cohort reunion. Great conversations. Beautiful people.

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What I’m up to and PV

So after my embarrassing uber moment (being a cry baby) I shared with you, I have been up to a few things. Trying to juggle my research paper with my colleague intern from WHO Afro on Universal Health Coverage and Pharmacovigilance (PV) in Ghana for my boss, drinking more water and basically just staying positive and happy. So my work schedule this month is all centred around PV and drug safety issues. I am very interested in this topic perhaps because I once worked at the Drug inspectorate of the Ghana Food and Drugs Authority, Ashanti regional office and I have a rough idea of what the situation of PV and Adverse drug events in the region at the time (2014/2015) was and I am keen to find out what the literature of the status quo is. And also I honestly cannot wait to add dramatic urgency to my report as it is a very important aspect of life science and public health.

Pharmacovigilance; alternatively called drug safety is a general scientific term used to describe the collection, monitoring and evaluation, and prevention of damaging effects of drugs. Adverse drug event usually called side effect is any reaction within the body of a patient triggered by a drug. A severe adverse drug event is usually a life threatening side effect that causes a patient to be hospitalized and permanently disabled or death in very extreme cases. Pharmacovigilance is concerned with only two outcomes which are safety and efficacy. It is mainly concerned with as to whether a drug works effectively and how safe it is.

The role of pharmacovigilance is to detect which adverse events is detrimental to the drug’s efficacy (how well it works). This simply means PV investigates which side effects are worth the risk to patients in comparison with the effectiveness of the drug in question in treating an infection. A typical example is the treatment of the various deadly cancers with chemotherapy despite its severe side effects. These adverse effects are considered acceptable because of its prospects of treating a patient. Conversely, if a drug used to treat a headache for example caused similar adverse effects, the risk to the patient would be considered greater than the benefit and thus not substantial enough to justify the possible harm.

My report will be investigating the problem of under reporting of Adverse drug events in Ghana. During my work at FDA, we visited hospitals every once or twice a month (this is a rough guess as I cannot recall) to pick up Adverse drug reports (ADRs) and a lot of times hospital records of ADRs were either non existent or clearly under reported. This I think has a huge impact on public health decisions and I would share the statistics with you when my report is done. Also, do you just follow your doctor’s written dosage on prescription? Reading the label of your drug prescribed or un-prescribed and taking the pain to actually research about any drug you take is critical to your health and can help reduce side effects with a bit of knowledge and common sense which otherwise could be harmful to you, You really don’t need to be a professional health worker to do that.

“We can’t direct the wind but we can adjust sails”

Check  here and here for references 

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February 21st, 2018

Yesterday, I broke down in tears talking to my mum on phone. I actually called her to cry and let it all out. I had just closed from a long meeting waiting for my uber (who didn’t exactly know his bearings) under a very scotching and an unfriendly sun fighting all the demons am supposed to be fighting at 26 going on 27. I was indeed going through some “thangs” and at that point I had reached my exhaustion quota.

My job was draining me. The workload all of a sudden became too much to process and deal with for what I was being paid. When I got this job the plan was to learn and gain more research experience while I waited for the “golden one” and did other important things I have going on. But it was all okay until it was actually not. I liked the fact that I was doing a lot of reading around subject areas I was working on (Adolescent health, health sector medium development plans etc) but it was not as flexible as I thought it would be. I worked as though it was full time because I was drowning in deadlines. That aside I was very anxious about my life. My money, my career, my status and everything that concerned my life. I was sick worried if I was going to be fine and I had it all bottled up. These tears had indeed struggled through fake smiles and what not. So my mum stayed silent and listened to the sobbing for over 5 minutes (as uber driver was probably side eyeing me like who is this weird girl tearing in my car) and prayed with me and she encouraged me to stay focused and strong despite. She took me through a story I have perhaps heard for the 100th time. About she who grew up in a village going  to school on bare foot who ended up working at the bank in the 80s, entered nursing training in the 90s and got herself a degree at age 52. What is it that you are saying you cannot do? Yours is to stay on course and not let anything saddle you she said. Young lady put yourself together and hustle. Yeah her love is usually this tough.

 Well, I needed to cry at that point to somebody who understood me and wasn’t going to judge me and think I was being exaggerative about my situation. And there is no other like mother (okay that sounded like a rap line lol). There was this feeling I didn’t want to feel that I had to drop the front and feel. I also reached out to my Afro mentor who really encouraged me and even offered to look at my resume. She is a lady that I bonded with over our antimicrobial resistance project in Afro. She has so much sense and she is also goals. She told me about how she had to do free work for UNAIDS and UNICEF for a period of two years split between the two organizations and how voluntary work was part of what she used to build her resume. At this point am feeling much better and quite over it lol and feeling so grateful to God for giving me family and friends who love me so much and are always rooting for me. And also heyyyyy 27, I have been waiting for you.

 “Before the time goes and the light folds. and things gold. and glow away. before things end. let them begin”

Nayyirah Waheed

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Pray for me; A public health issue

I know I haven’t posted on here in a while as much as I wanted to. I mean I have been jotting down a lot of things that I want to write about and I was hoping I could post at least once every week but you know life happened. You know this and that lol.  Anyways, I have noticed a very worrying trend lately. As I use my public health eye on the daily to analyse every situation or stories I come across on the internet, from conversations with friends and family etc, I saw that this particular issue has high prevalence in African communities.

Basically anything that does not enhance the lives of the masses (decreases life expectancy) and has high incidence rates is considered a public health problem. I chanced on a post a couple of days ago on BBC Africa website which really triggered an emotional response in me. I was so annoyed but also very sad by this issue. A South African pastor who sprayed insecticide on the faces of his church members which he claimed healed cancer and HIV. See story here.  First of all this is an assault and violation of human rights. Secondly, it can cause respiratory problems for victims. Months ago I read about another story where the pastor ordered his members to chew grass which they followed obediently. Pastors who have sexually assaulted teenage girls they were supposedly praying for. It honestly doesn’t stop. The stories are unending.

I believe that this is deeply rooted in illiteracy but shockingly some educated folks also seem to fall prey to this. A friend of mine was telling me about this lady who died of sepsis as a result of complications she had days after a caesarean. And we both went on and on about our inequitable, inaccessible and even when it is the poor quality of our healthcare. But wait! there was a revelation to my surprise. This educated lady went to church instead of a hospital. At WHO Afro I worked on this HIV program during our HIV awareness week and one of the challenges counsellors talked about was the fact that patients sometimes would stop clinic visits and taking Antiretroviral drugs because they were being prayed for for healing. I am Christian and I understand the principles of miracles and I do believe in them. Having said that, I also believe that God has given us wisdom to make good judgements and does not operate in a vacuum but through people in this case health professionals.

“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge”

Charles Spurgeon

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December, 2017

It is just around this time last year that I was rounding up my research paper on the effectiveness of low dose Aspirin in the prevention of stroke among high risk patients. A year came by so quickly. Aspirin and Stroke just meant a lot of background reading for me as my knowledge in pharmacology and medicine is quite limited because am not an expert in the field. I would from time to time feel so behind as I compared my pace with my mates who were obviously working on different things and call my mother to lament and what not (Bless you Mama!). This got me unnecessarily stressed and distracted. Yes! that is what comparison does to you. As I have evolved and learnt that every individual is different and it is not a race, I am gracefully trusting the process and not letting it ‘punk’ me out of the promise. Okay I digressed a bit. I actually want to talk about stroke prevention in relation to individuals who are at a higher risk of getting a vascular disease. Non- communicable diseases (NCDS) are accountable for 63% of all annual deaths globally with approximately 80% of deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries. Cardiovascular diseases (Stroke and heart attacks) are the leading cause of NCD deaths (check here http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/noncommunicable_diseases/en/ ).

My paper reviewed the current preventive and pharmacological interventions for stroke prevention and identified the knowledge gaps and investigated the mechanism of Aspirin as an antiplatelet. I would not bore you with the details of my research in case you have started to roll your eyes lol. As NCDS are of great public health importance and various lifestyles put people at higher risk, I think it is important for everybody to have some knowledge on both primary and secondary prevention of stroke.  Lowering blood pressure significantly prevents repetitive stroke. Clinical trials have demonstrated antihypertensive drugs cause a reduction in stroke risk (Talk to your physician for proper medical advice on use). Other influential risk factors include smoking, lack of physical activity and alcohol intake (behavioural risk factors). Although there has been some sort of controversy surrounding the relationship between physical activity and stroke incidence, it has the tendency of modifying high blood pressure which as I mentioned previously is a risk factor for reoccurrence of stroke. Warfarin, Clopidogrel plus Aspirin and Aspirin are drugs that have anticoagulant characteristics (lessen the clotting of blood in an artery, vien or heart)- check here http://www.strokeassociation.org/idc/groups/stroke-public/@wcm/@hcm/@sta/documents/downloadable/ucm_310825.pdf

During my work at Afro I was involved in what is termed inter cluster discussions which basically is collaborative dialogues between various clusters on how our work affects each other and how to effectively work together. For example how to adequately manage health systems to tackle NCDS.  As a public health advocate, I believe in the good old public health saying prevention is better than cure and so lifestyle modification (smoke cessation, less alcohol intake and physical activity) which all have increasing evidence in clinical practice reduces the risk of an individual having a stroke.

“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver”

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May be home is ourselves. #theijeoma

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It must stop!

Exactly a week ago my boss asked me to write a paper on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) and Human rights. Brief: A framework was adopted by the Member States of the UN in September 2015- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which consists of a set of 17 goals and 169 targets which basically aims at economic, environmental and social areas of sustainable development. The World Health Organization hopes to achieve these goals by the year 2030. Most of the 2030 Agenda’s commitment are integrally linked to UN Member States’ human rights requirements as clearly specified in the international human rights treaties which includes the right to development.

Among the 17 goals, in no order of importance SDG 1,3, 4, 6 and 10 which is no poverty, good health and wellbeing, quality education, clean water and sanitation and reduced inequalities respectively captured my notice. The recognition that health is a basic human right of every person I believe is critical to the achievement of sustainable development and thus human rights is of great public health interest. Why am I going on and on about human rights? My heart is fragmented into pieces about recent events in Libya. I am utterly shocked that in 2017 slave trade is existent. It is difficult to comprehend why such an extensive tragedy could be overlooked and surrounded by a thick wall of silence. Slavery, injustices and inequalities in the world today must end. No seriously it must! Human beings are not for sale. Absolutely not.

The SDGS highlights the universal declaration of human rights accords which emphasizes on the responsibility of Member States to respect, defend and support human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without discrimination of any kind. Denial of rights of people in the African region through all kinds of discriminatory policies must stop. These prejudices against African people which is firmly rooted in the notion that we do not add any value to the advancement of humanity must stop. We cannot lose this fight. We must not lose this fight. Follow the link below and sign the petition. Thanks

http://chn.ge/2zyMXfn

“Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world”

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Oh Shit! Am illegal

Week 6

So I have been in Congo Brazzaville for approximately a little over six weeks. I know! the days are indeed running a marathon. At this point I’m quite settled in. I know my way around the city quite a bit. And oh I was at the Ghanaian consulate the previous week. I was invited to a party and was happy to meet my people. I had a briefing on which numbers to call if I needed anything and in the unlikely event of any chaotic situation. It felt really nice to engage in conversations in my local dialect after 6 tough struggling to speak and understand French weeks. I am taking online French modules btw and recently have a teacher who takes me through every Friday.

I needed a visa to come to Congo Republic as a Ghanaian passport holder. And had to travel all the way to Togo to apply because they do not have an embassy in Ghana and Lome was the nearest city. Whew😥 right. This visa issue totally put me off and honestly made me want to say you know what I will give it all up. But UN came through with a special letter for visa on arrival to be granted for me. It was such a relief. I arrived in Maya Maya airport around 8.30 pm issh. My flight was 8 hours long lay over inclusive. The WHO protocol took my passport and visa fee and returned it to me the following morning. I had a visa for two weeks and needed to apply for a longer stay permit which I did immediately after I received my travel document.

I was in the 7th week of my internship program and still didn't  have my visa nor my passport.  This meant I could not go on travel duties and technically was illegal in the country. I had sent countless emails to the focal point concerning it but it was always we are working on it, we will get back to you and different other you need to wait stories. I wonder how long it takes to put a visa in a passport but hey🤷🏿‍♀️ apparently is NOT a very daunting task. I did not receive my passport until I critically needed to go to South Africa in the first week of November. Yes! And this is how I spent 3 months illegally in another country.

“Where you are is not who you are”

-Circumstances

Nayyirrah Waheed

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Friyays

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Night life in Brazzaville

Week 4

I am happy to inform you that my social life has seen tremendous improvement in the past few months lol. If you know me very well, you would perhaps recognize that my life is satisfactorily boring. More often than not am indoors watching skinny girls in transit or making contributions on GC main or annex (inside joke). All a girl needs is internet and a million dollars. I can say that I have done more fun things and have been very social here in Brazzaville than I have been in my entire 26 years on earth (may be not exactly true). But I have definitely been up to something almost every Friday night and over the weekends.

Dolma from Philippines is a colleague who had been very helpful in terms of getting around here and basically settling in. Such a beautiful soul. Fortunately and unfortunately she was transferred to Ethiopia to work at the country office in Addis. I was sad that she was leaving but also very excited for what the future held for her in terms of her career. So we planned a surprise send off party for her. It was a very nice party and of course an emotional one since everybody was sad to see her leave AFRO.

The night was quite still young so we decided to go out after the party. I wasn’t sure what to expect regarding the music, the vibe and so on. Also sometimes am very excited to go out and after an hour or two and a few drinks I wanna go home. C’est  compliqué lol. Clearly I’m not the life of the party. But guess what I loved it. There are a couple of nice bars around here. A night club called “No Stress” was my favourite. It was a mixture of afro beat and classical music. I liked the fact that there was a designated area for smokers and it was smoke free. So nobody really knows me around here and therefore it was an opportunity to dance like no one was watching.

“There is no quote out there that can fully describe how great Friday is”

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MPH? What do you really know.

Do you ever feel intimidated whenever you are around people you perceive as experts in the subject being discussed or even the particular field? We all agree that sometimes knowing the theoretical aspect of something doesn’t necessarily translate into the practical application. So here I am trying to justify my MPH. Like what do you actually know about Public Health my friend lol.

My supervisor got back from Victoria Falls and emailed me about our introductory meeting. So I consider this internship as a learning experience but also I'm here to prove that I have public health knowledge, problem solving skills and I'm capable of doing a great job (Because I'm still job searching you know). So I feel a bit pressured and all but that’s okay. We had a chat about what my expectations were, which aspects of public health I was interested in and what I knew about the healthcare system in Ghana. This felt like an interview by the way lol.  We discussed my plan of work (which I will talk about later), objectives and expected outcomes.

Later in that same week, I attended a meeting on Health Research and development.  A colleague (also an intern) randomly popped into my office and said oh there’s a meeting downstairs I think we should go. We just walked in and upon arrival we both looked at each other’s face like are we supposed to be here? It seemed like a closed meeting but wait for it! The chair now asked that we introduce ourselves. First of all I wasn’t sure if I was just supposed to say intern or make myself feel a bit important and mention my background and what not lol. He now goes on to say welcome Miss; we would love to hear your input on the subject. Like what am I gonna say that these professors and Drs don’t know already? But yeah we sat through it. Learnt a lot on supporting the use of evidence for policy making and its significance in healthcare. It was a very interesting and interactive meeting. Had the opportunity to ask questions and build network. My professor in Epidemiology always said “never ever miss the chance to build some sort of relationship with people because that is how you succeed in this field” Such a great learning experience for me.

“Pride said do it yourself, Wisdom says find someone who knows”

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Thank goodness I have nearly unlearned folding my desire into itself being afraid to claim it Yrsa Daley Ward

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First day at work

29TH AUGUST, 2017

I woke up in the morning with people saying voulez vous coucher avec moi lol outside my window and am like omg I am here for real. I just had all these thoughts going through my mind; Am I gonna be alright, will I fit in, how am I gonna manage with the language barrier, I need to totally impress them blah blah.

So I got ready for my first day at WHO Afro. HR received me well. People seemed really pleasant around here and almost everybody I had met in the early hours of the morning could fairly speak English and everything was going well. I had my work ID made for me and I had my security briefing (Republic of Congo is a post conflict country, it is however generally very safe. Records of theft and rape are relatively low). However, UN staffs are forbidden to enter the pool region where there is rebel activity. The pool region is situated just beyond Djoue where the organisation is located.

First day was just really chill and basically an orientation kinda day. I was assigned to the health systems strengthening (HSS) cluster and at HSS I am working under the Health Technology and Laboratory Unit. Before, I was like why labs but yeah I think based on my Biological Sciences background and where I had previously worked (Transfusion malaria study at KATH), it was quite in order. Very excited to be working in this cluster because I am very much interested in the aspect of public health that works to improve healthcare delivery and strives to make Universal Health Coverage materialize at country level. 

I was still yet to meet my supervisors and superiors since they had all gone for this big meeting at Victoria falls and were not back until the following week. I was assigned my working space with my desk and computer yet to be configured. I spent the rest of the day reading my WHO materials given during orientation. And voilà, day one was gone just like that.

“It all connected. Your gifts, your circumstances, your purpose, your imperfections, your journey, your destiny. Its moulding you”.

Embrace it

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Beautiful uncertainty

S/O to everybody who knows what they are about, where they are going to and basically what the next plan is immediately after they graduate. Like honestly, y'all have it so together. Good job!! I mean I knew that I wanted to advance my career in public health for sure and I was very much interested in maternal, neonatal and child health survival. I just didn’t particularly know what the plan was to make that an actuality.

So I have been seriously job searching since like May this year. Looking at all public health jobs in and around Ghana, paid and even unpaid internships because man was quite tired of staying at home and being broke. So I had applied to intern at WHO headquarters in Geneva when I was nearing the end of my degree (that was like November last year) and never got any feedback. Six months after I decided to go on the website again to see if there were any openings and luckily there was an internship spot at AFRO and I applied.

Fast forward I have been in Republic of Congo since August 28, 2017 doing this internship program and just thought it will be interesting to blog about my experience here at Brazzaville generally and my work at Afro specifically.

“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives wont have a title until much later”

-Bol Soff