PHR launched this blog a year ago, when we attended the First Annual Kenya Health Rights Conference. We’re attending again this year, and from December 2–5, PHR members and staff will be blogging from the Second Annual Conference. The conference is being held by PHR’s partner group, the Kenya Health Rights Advocacy Forum (HERAF), a network of health professionals committed to promoting health rights in Kenya.
Last year, PHR brought three of its US health professional members to the conference so that they could learn how health professionals in Kenya are working to address the human rights violations fueling the AIDS epidemic in East Africa. These PHR members visited clinics, met with NGOs, and participated in HERAF’s conference – leading them to become better advocates for health rights here in the US.
We are thrilled to be bringing a new group of health professionals with us to Kenya again this year to attend HERAF’s Second Annual Health Rights Conference. This year’s conference promises to be incredible. HERAF and the organizing committee have recruited a great group of presenters to bring to the attendees bold new ideas about policy reform, universal access to HIV treatment in Kenya, health financing, and advocacy. With lots of time for discussion and debate, it promises to be an exciting two days.
The three PHR members from the US will be joined by two health professionals from our partner groups in Uganda and Rwanda. Together, the group will visit clinics that are providing integrated services to women and children, meet with NGOs to explore the latest research on HIV, women’s health, and strong health systems, and share their own ideas and lessons learned about health professional advocacy in their communities.
Keep checking this site. We will have posts each day from conference participants, as well as photos and reflections from our members who are visiting Kenya. We will provide opportunities for learning and ideas for new ways to engage. Thanks for joining us.
Political theorist John Rawls poses an intriguing question about human rights: If none of us knew where we would be born, if we would be rich or poor, healthy or ill, male or female, short or tall, American or Kenyan or Indian or Chilean, what human rights would we want to be guaranteed? What choices would we want to have about how to live our one wild and precious life?
Today for me was all about the choices we have in America—and the choices Kenyans have, and what that means for health and human rights and the way we live and work and grow and play and celebrate. So what do I mean by choice?
[Sarah Kalloch, HERAF Chairman Andrew Suleh, MD and Suzy Jed, MSN, APRN-BC at Mbagathi District Hospital]The Choice to Live: In 1997, Mbagathi District Hospital, near Kibera slum, opened its first AIDS centre. Options were limited: there was no treatment, no ART, but there was counseling and psychosocial support—and a special kind of community dealing with sickness, and despair and death mixed with glimmers of hope. Ten years later, people living with AIDS who come to Mbagathi have a choice. The hospital’s Comprehensive Care Clinic has 3500 people on ART. We met one patient—a man in his 20’s or early 30’s named Boniface. Boniface is HIV Positive. But Boniface has choices. His CD4 count when he began ART at Mbagathi in 2004 was about 200. It is now over 800. Boniface has chosen to celebrate by becoming a peer counselor at the hospital: a few minutes after he left our delegation, we saw him giving a talk to patients in the AIDS clinic waiting room, coaching them, supporting them, connecting them, and making them feel like they can fight this disease. People with AIDS in Kenya have a choice now: they can get treatment. They can live for years and years. They can take care of their families and be part of their communities. We know prevention is critical, and many argue it is more cost effective than treatment, especially in Africa. But I wouldn’t want to tell Boniface that—would you?
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As promised in my previous post, I’ll be sharing the plans of the Health Action AIDS delegation each day. Today our group will visit two hospitals and meet with two partner organizations.
9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Visit to Mbagathi District Hospital
This tour will be led by Dr. A.J. Suleh, Chairman of the Health Rights Advocacy Forum and Chairman of the Kenya Medical Association’s Nairobi branch. Mbagathi District Hospital is a key health facility in Nairobi, and has been at the heart of providing comprehensive HIV/AIDS care in the face of the unfolding epidemic in Kenya. Mbagathi handles 10,000 patients, 1,000 of whom are children. The hospital also has 5,000 adults and 500 children on antiretroviral therapy and performs 150 consultations daily. Mbagathi District Hospital offers VCT, DTC, PICT, and PMTCT services, as well as TB care and counseling, among other services.
Mbagathi is a public health facility funded by the Kenyan government, and it also receives support from the international donor community, including the Clinton Foundation. As a provider of comprehensive HIV/AIDS care and treatment, a recipient of public funding and a target for international funding, Mbagathi District Hospital is critical for identifying advocacy needs for health workers in Kenya.
The PHR delegation will first meet with senior MDH staff for an overview of services offered, as well as recent successes and challenges in providing HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. The delegation will then tour the complete hospital facilities, including the wards, and have a chance to shadow MDH nurses and doctors and exchange with Kenyan colleagues.
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This week is a very exciting week for us here in Kenya. The Health Rights Advocacy Forum (HERAF) will be hosting the first conference of its kind in Kenya, assessing Kenya’s commitment to the right to health. Health workers from throughout the country will be attending the conference in Nairobi, and we have a group of doctors, nurses and PHR staff coming from the United States to support the conference and stand in solidarity with Kenyan colleagues.
The Kenyan health sector faces incredible challenges, but HERAF’s work over the past seven months has shown that Kenyan health workers are up to the task. The annual conference will address 4 key issues in Kenya: realization of the right to health, financing for health, support for the health workforce, and stigma and discrimination in the health setting.
The Health Action AIDS Campaign doctors and nurses will also visit Kenyatta National Hospital, the largest referral and teaching hospital in Kenya, and Mbagathi District Hospital, a flagship comprehensive care center for HIV/AIDS. However, these visits are just the beginning. They’ll also have a chance to meet with key partners in health workforce development and HIV-prevention among women and girls, to share PHR’s work across the globe and to learn from the experience of service providers on the ground here in Kenya.
Through Saturday, I’ll be posting an overview of what the Health Action AIDS Campaign has planned each day, and the doctors and nurses and others will blog with their perspectives on these experiences. This is an incredible opportunity to build connections across continents and forge the partnerships necessary to change the way health is imagined, demanded and delivered in both the United States and Africa.
Lissy Desantis is Kenya Program Associate for the Health Action AIDS Campaign, Physicians for Human Rights.
