It is health, Blues\u2019 Orators, that is real wealth.Not gold and silver.<\/p>\n
In agreement with Mahatma Gandhi who said this are, first, the much-touted but unfruitful Malawi Public Service Reform Commission chaired by none other than the beleaguered Vice- President Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima and, second, our President Peter Mutharika.<\/p>\n
Emphasising the centrality of good health, the Chilima Commission shortlisted the Health Sector among the reform pioneers due to its \u201ckey role in economic transformation and in creating the foundations for sustainable development\u201d.<\/p>\n
A high-sounding and imposing statement which is, however, empty if the \u2018reforms\u2019 we have seen to date are anything to go by.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ministry of Health: Quality Health is vital to support people engaged in economic transformation and also an essential for creating a foundation of sustainable development,\u201d the Commission wrote in its final report.<\/p>\n
Even Mapwiya Muulupale was fooled into thinking: At long last, we are heading somewhere.<\/p>\n
The reality is that the Ministry of Health (MoH), today, is no better than it was before the whole reform hullaballoo started.<\/p>\n
This is why revered Blues\u2019 Orators, if you all rise and condemn me for counting my chickens before the eggs had hatched, I will stand guilty as charged.<\/p>\n
Often times, Blues\u2019 Orators, we blame our woes on parliamentarians. But with respect to say, the construction of the National Cancer Centre in Lilongwe, parliamentarians passed the requisite bill in August 2014.<\/p>\n
But while cancer activists, the likes of the \u2018robustly\u2019 surviving Mrs Blandina Khondowe and pals, with very little resources and armed only with \u2018robust\u2019 patriotism are delivering well-coordinated sensitisation campaigns without any personal gain, merely moving the already funded National Cancer Project is something our paid experts at the ministry are yet to lift a finger on.<\/p>\n
The wisdom that \u2018excuses will always be there but opportunity will not\u2019 should have perhaps prefaced the Chilima Commission Report because, as a nation, we excel in finding excuses which any idiot, robust or otherwise, can find anywhere, any time without trying; than exploiting opportunities which are as rare as hen\u2019s teeth.<\/p>\n
MoH Spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe in a recent interviews aid all \u201clogistical issues\u201d have been resolved and remaining is the financiers\u2019 \u201cNo Objection Order\u201d for construction works to begin.<\/p>\n
Which logistics?<\/p>\n
Why was the \u201cNo Objection\u201d not sought in a manner befitting the emergency that the National Cancer Project is?<\/p>\n
Are these MoH officials not aware that while they are busy concocting their unpatriotic repertoire of excuses, Malawians are needlessly dying of cancer?<\/p>\n
Am I, therefore, wrong to call the MoH as the Ministry of Death?<\/p>\n
The most irritating thing about all this is that MoH has only updated us after Members of Parliament (MPs) under the Parliamentary Committee on Health \u2013 arguably the only functioning committee besides the Public Accounts Committee \u2013 demanded a progress report.<\/p>\n
Fifteen months after Parliament approved a Loan Authorisation Bill to borrow $13 million (about K5.4 billion at the time of borrowing) from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) Fund, not a single brick is on site, not to say a wheelbarrow!<\/p>\n
In fact, adverts have just been flighted.<\/p>\n
Apparently, MOH\u2019s only excuse coming close to sensible is that the project delayed because the government was yet to source additional funding.<\/p>\n
Someone unilaterally increased the budget from $15 million to $40 million via unauthorised changes to designs and specifications.<\/p>\n
The questions are: who revised the design and specs after the fact, and assuming the changes were imperative, which nitwit overlooked them when the bill was being presented to Parliament?<\/p>\n
And to add salt to injury, Chikumbe is still not 100 percent sure about the December 2016 date. And guess you what, he already has a scapegoat: development partners!<\/p>\n
This apathetic attitude to life-or-death initiatives like the National Cancer Centre is, among other things, why we are where we are.<\/p>\n
The delay is negatively impacting us socially and economically. We are sending connected people abroad at a high cost while for those without names, Lord have mercy!<\/p>\n
The 2,000 cancer cases the centre is supposed to treat annually represent 2,000 if not more poor Malawians, whose lives are now at risk, a risk which keeps multiplying every day.<\/p>\n
One thing is for sure, if the project had moved from Lilongwe to Blantyre as was wanted by Democratic Progressive Party, by now, construction would have taken off.<\/p>\n
I know this statement will put some people on the defensive but shoot the messenger all you wish; this is the sad fact about Malawi.<\/p>\n
Talking about shameless blatant selfishness, even as they are sitting on National Cancer Centre construction, Lilongwe District Health Office health workers boycotted a full-board donor-funded workshop for want of \u2018robust\u2019 subsistence allowances.<\/p>\n
I cannot agree more with their Principal Secretary MacPhail Magwira, who penned them on September 27, 2016, saying such conduct was \u201cunprofessional and irresponsible\u201d.<\/p>\n
Had he added that further procrastination of the National Cancer Centre under whatever pretext, is equally \u201cunprofessional and murderously irresponsible\u201d, I would have given him 10 out of 10.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, I disagree when in the same letter, he implies that what we should worry about, vis-\u00e0-vis the boycott, is\u201cthe potential to drive away would-be donors\u201d.<\/p>\n
This sick penchant of moving our arses only when donors are looking is yet another reason why brilliant initiatives like the Malawi Public Service Reform, this National Cancer Centre, the Vision 2020 and many others before them, die on shelves.<\/p>\n
The day we change this mentality, the moment people at MoH realise that they are paid to save Malawians\u2019 lives and not donors\u2019 livelihoods, is the day we will start moving.<\/p>\n
Come to think of it, the hopelessness of the reform-resistant Ministry of Death is why good old \u2018robustly healthy\u2019 Peter Mutharika \u2013 the man imbued with nine lives of a cat, the septuagenarian with a 30-year-old\u2019s anatomy, the millionaire whose livelihood costs us about K5 billion per year going by the 2016\/17 budget of the State Residences, the culprit appointing ineffectual \u2018Ministers of Death\u2019 and their third-rate principal secretaries \u2013 maintains a medical insurance in the United States of America behind our backs.<\/p>\n
Who can blame him?<\/p>\n
Given half a chance, would you not dump MASM for a medical insurance in the big apple, to dodge our badly equipped hospitals for state-of-the-art clinics where after \u2018nyamakazi\u2019 (rheumatism) treatment, one is guaranteed \u201clife\u201d for a very long time; to the chagrin of haters?<\/p>\n
Since, unlike the man we elected as president in 2014, we cannot afford medical insurance in the USA, to survive, we should demand that our leaders and health officials start doing \u2013 as a minimum \u2013 what they are paid to do.<\/p>\n
The natural starting point is the Ministry of Death which should reform back into a \u2018robust\u2019 Ministry of Health deserving the name.<\/p>\n
It is \u2018robust\u2019 health, Blues\u2019 Orators, that is real wealth and not pieces of gold or silver, no matter how \u2018robustly\u2019 they glimmer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is health, Blues\u2019 Orators, that is real wealth.Not gold and silver. In agreement with Mahatma Gandhi who said this are, first, the much-touted but unfruitful Malawi Public Service Reform Commission chaired by none other than the beleaguered Vice- President Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima and, second, our President Peter Mutharika. Emphasising the centrality of good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34510,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34504\/revisions\/34510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}