For Africa to achieve Primary Health Care there is need for a complete paradigm shift that will require deployment of the digital tools in the continent’s youth population, AMREF Health Africa Group Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Githinji Gitahi has said in Nairobi.
He is arguing that with a population of about 1.5 billion people, against a Growth Domestic Product (GDP) accounting for $2.8 trillion annually, Africa will continue to grapple with delivery of healthcare to her citizens.
To paint the picture clearer, Dr. Gitahi – who was addressing the inception of a three-day meeting dubbed Afya Fest – said that it will be difficult for the continent to focus on the biomedical model of treatment with just $40 per patient looking at the available resources against the population.
He said there will need to be a serious mindset shift from treatment to health production related preventive models, by strengthening the pillars that encourage healthy living.
“The question then becomes; how do you do it?” he said virtually, with an emphasis that the biomedical model of treatment is completely obsolete.
“This is because we cannot follow it, arguing further that if Africa will be trying to treat everyone who is sick; especially with the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs); unfinished business or infectious diseases; and the challenges of maternal mortality, it would be very difficult to just focus on treatment.
It’s simply not doable, Dr. Gitahi stated, taking an in-depth look at what the developed economies have done to succeed in sustainably delivering healthcare to their populations. Such examples include that of Germany, with a paltry population of probably 8 million people, but with a $4 trillion GDP; and Japan with 122 million people, with also about $4 trillion at its disposal, to mention a few, have managed their health delivery programs.
Compared to Africa, In the two countries, and other high-income nations, one person is entitled to an estimated $4,000 against the continent’s $40 per person per year of government money in terms of coverage.
“So it is a position that there is a big challenge to provide health services to people in Africa with such low resources, even if you are a kid, as you have said on the declaration,” he noted.
He said Africa can only adapt by redesigning a new way of delivering healthcare, and this will involve health production.
“What do we mean by this concept of health production?” he posed, and explained that there is need for the continent to reorient her health system to a health production model, a matrix to primary health care, where in this pillar, services are available to all, especially women and children at the first wave of contact, when they need work and play.
The second pillar of primary health care, Dr. Gitahi said, is to ensure that the community that is around primary health care facilities is empowered and well-educated, and aware of the services they need; how they can be delivered, but also to keep themselves out of disease.
“And the final pillar is multi-sectoral action, meaning that we are looking at water sanitation, and we are looking at transport security, and what role they play in maternal and child care in the reduction of non-communicable diseases,” he said.
Primary health care, Dr. Gitahi continued, should be seen as the health-productive tool that then delivers better health for people, and therefore there is no need of spending mega-hundred dollars on treatment because it can be afforded.
“I have said before, Africa cannot afford health care, but Africa can afford to produce health. So in this sense, we say we have made a demand for innovation for us to create a primary health care model that gives Africa health open space,” he added.
It is high-time for Africa to seriously start to speak about redesign; talk about innovation, a new way of working, and also how to leverage on existing new tools; such as digital technology, and other technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), which then says that there is actually a demand and supply.
He advised the young people in the room drawn from across the continent to take advantage of the demand the health production at the primary healthcare level is creating, to enrich their innovations.
“That supply is going to come from yourselves; young people working in universities, and partners of business cooperating, young people who are delivering innovation of technology that can then solve this phenomenon of trying to ensure that we don’t focus on health care we produce health,” he added.
This, he emphasized, means Africa will need the tools that people have, data that is closer to the people, one that is responsive, that allows for early diagnosis, “because, you know, a stitch in time saves lives, through giving tools, and this is largely due to the reason that our $40 cannot afford nine, but our $40 can afford a stitch in time.”
He concluded that he looks forward to the outcome of the collaborative meeting, being attended by a combination of activists in delivering innovation that enables a vibrant primary health care as a platform for health production. “This is going to be the basis for a prosperous country,” he added.
The meeting brings together innovators, policymakers, and funders seen as ambassadors of a new Africa, continent-led health solutions. “For 3 days we spotlight bold African innovations, driving sustainable change across the continent,” says a statement in the Amref International University (AMIU), the key host.
