International
The W8 shows that change is possible
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Dorothy Ngoma © Oxfam
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Dorothy Ngoma is head of the National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi and she’s telling leaders to help the world’s poorest people.
Dorothy is a member of the W8, a group of 8 extraordinary women from all 4 corners of the world who are campaigning for health and education for all.
As Dorothy puts it:
“Health and education have been recurrent themes in my life. I feel these issues personally. I’ve seen many women dying due to the weak health system in my country. Poverty is a massive problem in Malawi. 14 million people live in Malawi and 70% live below 1 dollar per day, they struggle to survive. There are only 200 doctors in the whole country. When I told that to a press conference in France a gasp went round the room.
Because of a lack of skilled midwives and doctors 16 women die daily due to problems related to pregnancy and delivery. 22 people die daily due to TB, while TB is a curable disease. Malawi has 1 doctor for 65,000 and 1 nurse for 3,500 people. An impossible task.
People often don’t go to hospital until they have something really serious, simply because they don’t have the money. Sometimes, people don’t even have money to get on the bus to get to hospital.
In Malawi we fight against any sort of diseases: TB, malaria, HIV/AIDS, cholera, dysentery, we have the problem of dirty water. It’s a sick community. Nurses are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week. We have to lobby for more nurses and we have to work hard to stop nurses leaving the industry or leaving Malawi, due to the heavy job.”
Along with the other members of the W8, Dorothy is working to spread this message and let others, especially decision makers, know about the issues. Better education and health for all is possible, but only with more resources. More doctors, more nurses and more midwives.
As Dorothy says, “We need to speak up both at the local level and at international level. We need to tell people what’s wrong and how to change it.”
Thanks to Dorothy and the other members of the W8 we know that change is indeed possible.
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