March 20, 2014

My Week in Ghana

Katherine Bradley, Yale '17

Recently, I traveled with a team from Yale’s Global Health Leadership Initiative and witnessed the treatment and lack thereof, of those dealing with mental health issues in the country of Ghana.  GHLI has partnered with senior health practitioners, policymakers, and health care officials for several years to assist their efforts in treating those with mental health disorders.  Our team spent a majority of the time in Accra where we visited Accra Psychiatric Hospital, and met with the Ghana GHLI delegation to discuss progress made to improve mental health care. 

My most memorable experience of this trip was visiting the small city of Koforidua to better understand how the mental health care system works outside of Accra.  During our day there, the community psychiatric nurse scheduled many activities. We first met with the regional health director and the director of the regional hospital. We then went on home visits where we followed community outreach workers who remind patients to return to the hospital for follow up treatment including medication. We also a visited a clinic focused on child mortality, and a prayer camp. The prayer camp housed mostly mentally ill patients who were there to pray their sickness away, but they were also given medicine by the local hospital through outreach by a community psychiatric nurse. 

The day was overwhelming, but also inspiring as I witnessed the passion that the mental health staff had for their work.  With no additional government funding beyond their basic mandate, the staff at the regional hospital managed to find funds to create a new psychiatric ward with eighteen beds because they knew it was important.  I also saw dedication of one psychiatric nurse, Akosua, who took it upon herself to start "Project Dignity," an initiative where staff rehabilitates homeless persons with mental illness.  
Discussing the challenges of improving mental health care in Ghana for the first half of the week, I could see there was a long way to go. After meeting the frontline people who were making this happen, I had a lot more hope that Ghana could achieve their goal of improving mental health care. 

March 11, 2014

Why We Do What We Do: Philip Morgan

From Africa to Asia, Philip Morgan, Physical Rehabilitation Program Manager at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has traveled the world with strong sense of humanitarianism, and desire to combat certain issues he has seen again and again related to global health. 

After joining the ICRC six years ago, Philip now works in low-income countries where he applies his expertise in both humanitarian efforts and in prosthetics and orthotics. He was recently named a facilitator for the Regional Senior Leadership Program Implemented by Yale GHLI and Management Sciences for Health through the USAID-funded Leadership, Management & Governance Project.  The Program provides senior decision makers with the skills they need to address health system challenges. Equipping these national teams to improve their respective country’s enabling environment for disability and physical rehabilitation services will enhance USAID and ICRC’s ongoing efforts to establish and improve accessible and appropriate prosthetic, orthotic, and physical rehabilitation services.

Philip facilitates the team from Sudan comprised of six senior leaders from government and non-profits, clinical and non-clinical, who focus on disability issues. “It is a challenge to get the team members together, due to their busy and varying schedules - but with support from Yale GHLI team members and MSH we are able to manage the team and develop solutions,” he explains. Philip finds it particularly interesting that despite participants’ various backgrounds, they have all been able to unite over a common commitment to the program.

“The response from the first session has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Philip. “I hope the students continue to pursue this work. Forging strong alliances across borders would help provide further support to each other’s programs, and certainly help develop policy with regards to disability issues within each country.”

Philip sees great opportunity for continued work in Sudan and hopes to support the work of the National Authority for Prosthetics and Orthotics (NAPO) and their plan to set up a school of prosthetics and orthotics within the country. With only 25 specialized clinicians to serve the needs of over 130,000 people in Sudan with physical disabilities, there is a great need – and Philip wants to help work towards a solution.  

March 5, 2014

Yale Women: Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Seth Nigrosh

As an international relations major at Connecticut college, classes that relate to public health and global health were not on my radar for a long time. I have recently become interested in the subject, and realized that as senior year was coming to a close, I had few ideas about what a job in the global health industry would look like. When I had the opportunity to attend Yale's “Women in Innovation: Leading Yale Women in Social and Healthcare Startups” panel discussion I was eager to go. All three panelists, Barbara Bush, YC ’04, founder of Global Health Corps; Jennifer Staple-Clark, YC ‘03, founder of Unite for Sight; and Laura Niklason PhD, MD Yale faculty and co-founder of Humacyte explained origin of their respective organizations and how they ended up at the forefront of the global health community.

I was curious to hear how people who do not have any sort of health or medical background can still be involved in a global health project. When Ms. Bush spoke about her time at Yale as an architect student and Ms. Staples-Clark talked about the importance of removing barriers to care, I realized that global health is an inherently interdisciplinary undertaking. Scientific work by people like Professor Niklason, whose research into regenerative tissue and arterial implants is breaking new ground, will always be needed. But, we also need people who are experts in logistics who can get new medicines and technologies around the globe, and advocates to keep up pressure on public figures to respond to global health crises. I used to ask myself, “Should I have majored in IR? I love it, but I don't want any of those traditional government or finance jobs!” Now, I see that instead I should be asking myself, “How can I take what I've learned and apply it to a complex and intriguing field like global health?” In today's interconnected world, it's not just what you know, but how you apply it creatively, that matters.