Kampala, Uganda
Christians should join with governments in building resilient health systems that can deal with health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of a US-based health network has said in a speech in Uganda.
In a lecture given at Uganda Christian University in late July, Doug Fountain, executive director of the Maryland-based Christian Connections for International Health, said Christians and church-affiliated academic institutions should be strategic in preparing strong health systems for crises.
“Christians have to create an enabling environment for the work of doctors, nurses and dentists to be efficient at work,” he said. “The environment should be conducive to health practitioners and engaging to the communit.”
“That means that everyone has a role to play in promoting health whether we are business leaders, lawyers, clergy, education leaders and government workers, we should all be involved in the promotion of health.”
Doug Fountain, executive director of the Christian Connections for International Health, speaks at Uganda Christian University on 27th July. PICTURE: Israel Kisakye
Fountain, a former deputy vice-chancellor for external relations at the university, urged Christian universities to encourage the development of learning and critical reasoning skills needed for for health promotion.
“The functions of universities include teaching and research and Christian universities can be ideal for health promotions,” he said.
The event in Nkoyoyo Hall, which was attended by Anglican Bishop Sheldon Mwesigwa, of Ankore Diocese in western Uganda, was among those organised to mark the university’s 25th anniversary.
Speaking at the event, UCU’s Vice Chancellor Professor Aaron Mushengyezi noted that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was an equaliser in terms of resilience to the health crisis because it affected both the developed and less developed countries.
“Before the outbreak of COVID-19, we always imagined that the developed western world was more resilient when it came to health system but the pandemic proved that none of us not even the Western world was prepared enough to deal with the health crisis of such a proportion since everyone grappled to deal with it,” he said.
Mushengyezi said that “building resilient health systems was something all of us can only keep working at”
“I wonder what would be the indicators of a resilient system to withstand a health crisis,” he said. “It could be a system that has a high level of preparedness to the crisis. The key ingredients in such a system might include high levels of preparedness to deal with such a crisis; experience in dealing with such a crisis and the ability to leave out a crisis and being tested for tenacity, for example, Uganda has dealt with severe crises in the past including HIV/AIDs, Ebola and locusts.”
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Professor Joel Okullo, head of the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council, said COVID-19 brought in challenges that people around the world were not ready for.
“A lot of people developed mental illness issues as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic yet they lacked support,” he said. “A lot of our effort in health is usually put in restoring health and not promoting or maintaining it and that is something that we must change and that’s where Christianity should come in.”
Okullo encouraged young doctors to seek the help of Christian counselling services as he did back in the days when he was still studying to become a doctor.
“The Christian counselling course changed my life and made me a completely different person,” he said.
John Semakula is a lecturer of journalism and communication at Uganda Christian University.
