Africa-Press – Malawi. Global Health Corps (GHC) alumni gathered in Lilongwe on Saturday to discuss mental health and ways of improving health care service provision. GHC has a fellowship program aimed at building a network of young leaders and on Saturday, September 24, alumni of the program met to discuss health related issues.
Simon Simkoko, GHC country director, said issues discussed during the session included gender based violence, mental health, sexual and reproductive health, Covid-19 and health systems.
“The alumni are people who have different expertise and knowledge and there are also other players from different organisations.
“As they start to develop ideas, we will take the ideas to different directorates in the Ministry of Health and review the proposals,” said Simkoko.
He added that GHC will also use the ideas to implement programs in communities together with other players in the health sector. One of the GHC alumni, Nthambose Simango, said they are looking at ways of improving access to health for people with disabilities.
She noted that people with disabilities are usually dependent on other people in order to go to hospital and they face challenges on issues of privacy. She added that for those with problems in speaking, they face challenges in terms of communicating with health providers.
Simango further said that the way some health facilities were constructed, they do not carter for people with disabilities and this is something that needs to be looked at.
“We are in the initial phases of the project but we are looking at measures such as communication with health service providers, improving physical environment in hospitals and improving the financial muscle of people with disabilities,” said Simango.
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