Monday, April 8, 2013

Stop Malaria Project Interview: Benjamin Omagor



As part of BAMM (Blog About Malaria Month) I will be featuring brief interviews with my coworkers at Stop Malaria Project (SMP) and Malaria Consortium (MC) in the Soroti office.
Note: SMP is implemented by MC, which provides technical assistance to the project.
 
Benjamin Omagor is a technical assistant employed by MC to work in SMP. 

  
A: Where are you from?
B: I’m from Soroti, in Arapai subcounty, Onyakai village.

A: What did you study?
B: I received a diploma in clinical medicine and community health from Mbale School of Clinical Officers. Right now I’m studying for a bachelor of science in health services management at Islamic University in Uganda in Mbale.  Afterwards, I will pursue a master’s degree in health economics or public health.  If all goes well, I’d like to do it at Johns Hopkins University, or study in London. 

A: Where have you worked before SMP/MC?
B: I was working as a clinician at Louis Memorial Medical Center in Kampala.  I was also working as a buffer trainer for Malaria Consortium in a project called ICCM (integrated community case management) which involves treatment of malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea at the household level implemented by VHTs (village health teams).  Working those two jobs gave me a clear understanding of the difference of health service delivery between the elites and the rural poor.  

A: Why did you want to work for SMP/MC?
B: I have this enthusiasm to implement community based projects.  I realized that I could be of use based on the experience that I gained from working in a well-facilitated health facility.  Now during supervision, I see myself trying to create an improvement in rural facilities.  The job also brought me back home.  Since the facility I was working in had patients with health insurance, I began to think “is it possible for me to come up with an insurance package for the rural poor?” Coming back to Soroti made it easy for me to think how I can implement that, even though it’s still just an idea.  Slowly, I’m starting to see how I can kick-start that project.  The point is to help people that are really poor.  I’m also involved with a chicken project to help generate income for poor households.      

A: What drew you to work in public health?
B:  As a clinician, I was seeing people come with different illnesses to a facility. The fact that there is a possibility to prevent a disease drew me to public health.  Why does someone have to wait until they are sick to come a facility?  We can attack malaria from all fronts, from prevention to management.  It’s all connected.  The fact that I can work with communities and crowds also drew me in. 

A: What do you like most about your job?
B I’m really involved deep inside the fight against malaria.  It helps me also move to places, meet different people and study different aspects about human beings. 

A: What do you think is the biggest challenge in malaria eradication?
B: The biggest challenge right now is the eradication of the mosquito itself. We are now encouraging people to use barrier methods, like sleeping under nets.  In our environment, it is almost impossible to eradicate the mosquito with so many swamps, especially here in Teso, with all the fingers of Kyogo Lake.  You can’t drain the swamps and a mosquito can fly over two kilometers.  But we have gained a lot success in preventing deaths from malaria.   

A: What do you think could be improved in the malaria eradication campaign?
B: I think we need to take curative measures nearer to the communities.  More research should be done on sterilizing mosquitoes.  If you can’t do without the mosquitoes, at least stop it from carrying the parasite and transmitting malaria. Introducing scaling up of ICCM should also be done. Drugs should always be available and recruit enough health workers to treat children with malaria. Drugs are useless in the facility if no one can dispense them.

A: After SMP ends, what would you like to do?
B: I would like to work with health projects for about five years.  But, if it doesn’t come my way, I will do poultry or other business.  Or I could volunteer in rural health facilities as a clinician.  And of course, I want to pursue my master’s. 

A: Can you share a memorable experience from working at SMP?
B: When I did clinical audits in Ngora hospital, we discovered they didn’t have an emergency room in their OPD, or Outpatient Department. (Clinical audits are a way for health professionals to be assessed through clinical performance.  It involves setting standards, and the audits compare the reality to the standards.  It identifies gaps that need to be addressed.)   So, for the first time, I saw that the administrators took it seriously.  Before I left, they identified a room to be set up for the emergency room.  It impressed me that they took it very seriously.

Stop Malaria Project Uganda is one of many organizations that host a Peace Corps Volunteer in partnership with Stomping Out Malaria in Africa. The initiative mobilizes and connects over 3,000 Peace Corps Volunteers in 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to work together to eradicate malaria from the continent. To learn more, please visit: http://stompoutmalaria.org/.     


No comments: