I woke up on Saturday morning not expecting a lesson. I had hoped for a quiet, restful morning and was annoyed that my time and space kept getting interrupted. I had no clue that I was about to get schooled on the reality of coronavirus lockdown, even less by four angels who by midday reduced me to tears.
Angel of the children Anena’s* smile was so big, I struggled to get grumpy when she knocked on the door. She came to read a book with us, the only semblance of formal education in her life right now. She struggled to read the five word sentences, but was delighted to finish the book and take a new one home.
But reading the odd book with a couple of try-hard non-teachers isn’t going to help Anena learn what she needs to get ahead. Under lockdown, young children haven’t been at school for 16 months, which will hold back the futures of some, and decimate the futures of many. We pray Anena will only be held back.
3 Cool Cats, none of whom have been at school for 16 months and counting…
Angel of the young women 16-year-old Priska has piles of responsibility. She cooks, looks after her younger siblings while earning some money on the side. That’s why we met on this fateful Saturday morning – she washed clothes for us for some extra money. But when school is off, and every teenage girl and boy in the community is at home, you can imagine what too often happens. Although data is scarce, one report from Comboni Samaritans estimated that almost 18,000 girls between 12 and 17 became pregnant during lockdown.
And like many kids here, even before coronavirus Priska had already missed a lot of school. She’ll be around 20 when she’s finished primary school and chances of secondary school are slimmer than ever. Coronavirus lockdown could well be the last nail in the coffin, ending her chances of further education.
Angel of the sick Id never met Angela before, as she walked up to the door with one leg, and one old crutch. Her 9-year-old daughter was next to her, not looking too well. It turns out they were both sick. Malaria had been multiplying in her daughter’s blood for 3 days, while Angela wondered how she would scrape together the two dollars required to get tested and treated. Fortunately, I had some malaria tests and medication and was able to help her out this time.
Sick people with little money struggle even more under lockdown. Many street sellers, transporters and market vendors have lost their source of income, and therefore have lost the ability to pay for healthcare. In the village it’s even harder, as transport has been restricted and motorcycle taxis risk beatings by the police as they carry the sick.
And if you have a serious illness like heart disease or cancer, I have no idea how you’ll manage to get to Kampala, the capital, for treatment. Your chances of survival are slim.
Angel of the working poor At 25, Omiya’s life already could be the opening scene of a movie. Through grit and determination, he supported his brother through school and built homes for his family – despite being an orphan who didn’t complete primary school himself. Despite being unable to read or write, he overcame the odds to complete a carpentry qualification and has just now built a simple workshop out of wood offcuts and used iron sheets. Within weeks he had filled a few orders and things were looking good.
And then lockdown hit
“Cene dong pe ba.” – “There’s no more money”. Today was only the second time in seven years that Omiya had run out of money. Carpentry orders had dried up, there are no odd jobs around and he’s out of luck providing for his wife and young child. Make no mistake: if Omiya was born in New Zealand, he would have achieved more than we ever could. He just happened to lose the geographic and socio-economic lottery and so here we are, on an extraordinary Saturday morning with a hard-working and enterprising person asking us, his lucky, rich, Western friends, for help.
The lockdown will devastate the working poor
After Omiya left, my self-indulgent grumpiness finally melted. The reality of the four angels sunk in and tears started flowing. My expectations of a quiet and relaxing morning had led me to miss the gravity and reality of lockdown all around me, and I had failed respond with the kind of love required.
Perhaps too late, the voice of God finally broke through a stubborn heart.
“Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
*Names used are not people’ actual names to preserve privacy.
A few years ago, Sofia offered to help OneDay Health with the non-glorious, time consuming task of counting huts to help estimate population of healthcare black holes. She’s now running a blog and podcast on the Harvard Public health review, and we had a great wide ranging conversation about local health, global health, OneDay Health and a bunch of other stuff
Here’s an overview on different parts of the conversation – feel free to dip in to a few minutes that you’re interested in!
1-7 mins: What Tessa and I are are up to in Uganda 8-9 mins: Early response to coronavirus in Gulu, Uganda 10-18 mins: Community health and Global health 18-35 mins: The OneDay Health story and reflections 35-40 mins: Coronavirus lockdown and uganda 40-46 mins: Inequality in corona vaccine rollout 47-48 mins: Nationalism and money wastage challenges global health efforts 49-50 mins: What can anyone do to help in global health? 50-54 mins: “Preferential option for the poor” – what drives our work
When our much vaunted, Nobel peace nominee leader Jacinda Ardern campaigned in 2017, she preached a beautiful, counter-cultural message. When asked the qualities that underpinned her path to leadership, she responded with
“Kindness, and not being afraid to be kind” “I want the government…. to bring kindness back”
But is Jacinda really kind? And what about you and I?
Kindness is complex. I wish it was as simple as smiling at your neighbour and baking cookies for your friend (which is a great start), but the rabbit hole runs deep. I use Jacinda Ardern as an example, first because she has claimed the high ground of kindness, and second because her actions as prime minister are plain to see. At the end of this musing I hope you’ll ask yourself the same questions I’m asking myself right now
“How kind really am I?”, and more importantly “How can I do better?”
Three levels of kindness
To help us think about kindness, I propose three levels of kindness. We start at level one with interpersonal kindness – kindness to the people we meet along our road. Our families, our workmates, the homeless person we pass by every morning. Level two is kindness to our wider community. People we may never meet but who share our supermarkets, schools and tax code. And third, kindness to people far away in space and time. People we rarely consider – those on the other side of the world, and those born in the future. This three level framework is a flawed model with ambiguity and overlap, but perhaps it can help us to understand the complexity and depth of human kindness.
Three Levels of Kindness
Level One – love your neighbour
On March 15th 2019, A gunman walked into a Christchurch mosque and murdered 51 people. In the midst of the anguish, Jacinda’s response was incredible. She listened to the victims, cried with them and embraced them with her arms, words and actions. An iconic picture of her embrace with a victim’s wife captured her kindness, empathy and compassion while sending ripples around the globe. Jacinda displayed incredible level one kindness, the kindness we show directly to our neighbours, our families and the suffering people we meet on the way.
Jacinda Ardern is an expert practitioner of level one kindness. You can feel it in the tone of her voice, her warm smile and well chosen words she speaks through every crisis.
Level one kindness is the where the rubber in our heart hits the road. It’s not easy to be kind to our neighbors and those we meet on the road of life. It takes effort, empathy and time. But there is rarely a large price to pay for level one kindness. Jacinda can be kind to those suffering from a crisis without hurting anyone, unlike the next two levels of kindness where something has to give. To achieve level two and three kindness there are personal, financial and political prices to pay. I would argue that for politicians, level one kindness is important, but is the least important of the three levels, because the job of a country leader is to be kind to millions, not just a select few.
Level Two – Kindness with a cost
Level two is kindness to our wider community – people we don’t know and may never even meet. People who share our tax code, our hospitals and our schools. We display level two kindness when we pick up rubbish, pay our taxes and vote with our whole community in mind, not just our selfish ambitions. But level two kindness often has a tradeoff. We sacrifice our money when we pay tax and vote for higher taxes. Picking up rubbish can be pretty gross and time consuming. Also, level two kindness often goes unrecognized. People will never know if we’ve put all our rubbish in the bin.
For politicians, level two kindness even harder. In order For a politician to be kind to the wider population, they usually have to harm some people. Truly “win win” policies are rare. Leaders ask (or force) one group of people to sacrifice something for the benefit of another. You harm one group, to help another. When we practice level two kindness, we hope that the total good will exceed the smaller harm to some people. I’ve visually represented this below, with the greater good eclipsing the necessary smaller harm.
In some areas Jacinda has demonstrated admirable level two kindness. The most obvious is the Covid-19 lockdown. She made the hard decision to harm some people, to bring about a greater national good. The lockdown decimated tourism, with many businesses forced to close, in order to keep the virus out. Families have been separated in order to keep the virus our. We went into recession, in order to keep the virus out. But the benefit of keeping the virus out was far greater than these harms.
On other occasions however she has refused to display level two kindness. New Zealand is in the midst of a housing crisis, with house prices among the most expensive in the world and rents skyrocketing. Fixing the crisis requires bold Level two kindness, as Jacinda would have to harm richer home owners, sacrificing political support in order to lower house prices for hundreds of thousands of poorer New Zealanders who are struggling with the skyrocketing price of property.
In 2019 a Tax working group recommended that the government implement a capital gains tax which might have helped stabilise house prices. Jacinta refused to implement the experts’ recommendation, with full understanding that she was rejecting level two kindness for political gain. To her credit, she even conceded that she was not doing the right thing for political reasons.
“Under my leadership, we will no longer campaign for, or implement a capital gains tax – not because I don’t believe in it, but because I don’t believe New Zealand does.”
Jacinda understood the right thing to do – implement the tax. But to use her own words against her, she was “afraid to be kind” because of the political and personal cost. I respect her intellect and honesty, but don’t respect her making the unkind decision.
Level Three Kindness – Fight injustice from afar
Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia has been criticised for not being kind, some seeing him as an antithesis of “kind” Jacinda. But in the last year, he has been world leading with astonishing level three kindness that harmed his own people, to the tune of over 3 billion dollars of lost business, in order to do the right thing for people suffering on the other side of the world. The perhaps genocidal treatment of Uyghur Muslimsby the Chinese government is arguably the largest scale human rights abuse of our time. With over a million Urghurs locked up in “re-education” camps, tens of thousands undergoing forced labour and evidence of forced abortion and sterilization, the treatment Urghurs by the Chinese government has been described as the largest incarceration of an ethnic group since the holocaust. World leaders haven’t done enough, but at least leaders like Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Angela Merkel openly condemned the Chinese AND put some sanctions in place.
The real heroes though are the Australian government, who were among the first to speak out strongly against the Chinese government, and have suffered severe backlash from the Chinese including 100% to 200% tax on Australian wine imports. The Australian government is causing their own citizens to suffer a little, in order to fight injustice abroad.
On the other hand, Jacinda Ardern has been one of the least kind world leaders to the suffering Uyghurs. Her pathetic statement that the situation is “an issue of grave concern” and her lie “I don’t know what could be stronger than raising it face-to-face with the leadership in Beijing” (how about sanctions or far stronger public words) illustrate the famous concept “All it takes for bad people to prosper is for good people to do nothing”. She has chosen political and national financial gain over kindness to millions of people she will never meet. How can someone who professes to be kind, ignore what is perhaps the greatest human rights abuse of our time? As a New Zealander I’m ashamed to be part of this unkindness.
Fighting climate change is perhaps the ultimate test of level three kindness.Action to prevent climate change primarily affects people who haven’t been born yet, and that’s not easy for politicians. It’s not easy to harm people who are living now, in order to do good to humans who don’t exist yet. People who haven’t been born can’t vote for you! Unfortunately there is no alternative – almost every policy we use to fight climate change does economic harm now, in order to safeguard our future.
On climate change Jacinda has failed the level three kindness test. New Zealand isn’t a world leader on any climate change front. Our carbon tax is pathetic, we barely regulate farming (our biggest emitter) and we are 10 years behind the rest of the world on electric cars. Muchmaligned ‘Muricajust pledged a far more ambitious carbon reduction target than New Zealand’s. Indeed it is hard to find a developed country doing less to combat climate change than New Zealand. The problem again is that Jacinda would have to hurt some people now in order to safeguard future generations – a kind of kindness Jacinda doesn’t appear to possess.
Level 1000 kindness – Love your enemies
As a final note, there is a level of kindness which extends beyond these three. A level that we rarely (me included) reach. Far harder than being kind to our friends, building a generous welfare system or even fighting injustice around the world is loving our enemies. if even a significant minority of humanity were to reach this level of kindness, our world would look very different.
Can we learn to love our enemies – our annoying workmate, our extortionate landlord, or those far right/far left “idiots” we despise? It’s easy to say “well that’s just not how the world works” (which is true) but it’s harder to be part of changing how the world does work. While those across the political spectrum use free speech and cancel culture to punish their enemies, there are ways to love those we hate, and bridge divides. We have role models like Deeyah Khan, the Muslim film-maker who engages face to face with the very Neo-nazis who persecute her, and has even compelled some to abandon their hateful ideology. The only time Jesus tells us to be perfect is when he commands us to love our enemies – that level of kindness has no parallel.
So here’s the challenge not just for Jacinda, but for all of us. How are we doing at all levels of kindness? How kind are we to people we meet along the way? Do we consider our wider community with our actions, and what about those around the globe or future generations who haven’t been born yet? Is there even a way we can be kind to the person we hate the most?
“I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return.
As a rule (with VERY few exceptions), NGOs should do one thing, one activity and do it well. Most household NGO names do the opposite, but many great NGOs out there both large and small do one thing very well and have enormous impact.
The Against Malaria Foundation distribute mosquito nets. GiveDirectly give cash transfers to the poorest people. Doctors without borders provide quality medical care in unstable areas. They do one thing, do it again and again, and do it well. On the other hand, most big NGOs do a large range of unrelated activities and usually don’t do many of them well. Here’s a couple of screenshots NGO web pages, where they outline their large range of unrelated activities.
So why should an NGO avoid doing so many activities? Why shouldn’t an NGO mix in some education projects, drilling boreholes and agricultural trainings? To be Effective,NGOs should display the 3 Es Expertise, Experience and Efficiency – and unfortunately these 3 Es are impossible to achieve over a wide range of activities. And to add the icing on the cake the Evidence backs up the theory that the best NGOs only do……. one thing.
Expertise:Any organization that does a wide range of activities will at best be a jack of all trades and master of none. NGO workers here in Northern Uganda constantly work in areas where they have no formal training – they try hard but are not experts. In the morning an NGO worker with a general degree in development studies might train people how to run a savings and loans group, while in the afternoon they run a focus group on domestic abuse. The next day they try and teach poor farmers the best way to plant maize. These NGO workers are experts at no part of their daily job. They are neither accountants nor counsellors nor agriculturalists, but they are forced do an average job in all those areas. NGOs do hire experts (often temporarily) to assist and run their programs, but this is far from universal.
I’m a doctor, and once attended a “training” on malaria partially run by a guy with a degree in public administration. It was terrible, the poor guy tried hard, but how could someone with no expertise expect to teach medical professionals? We wouldn’t tolerate this in developed countries, why do we tolerate it in Uganda? An NGO can’t maintain expertise in a range of unrelated fields
Experience: You trust Macdonalds (maybe) to make you a burger because they’ve made billions of them and have built a reputation. Whatever we think about Macdonalds, they are experts at making cheap burgers. Lionel Messi is the best football player (maybe) in the world not just because he has talent, but because he has played football for over 20,000 hours. He has a wealth of experience at doing one thing well. Macdonalds isn’t about to start up a hairdressing chain, and neither is Messi going to start playing professional tennis.
The same goes with NGOs. I trust Doctors without Borders to provide top quality medical care in conflict situations because their operation is run by experts who have experience doing it many times before. Doing the same thing over and over again is the only way to gain real mastery. To learn what works and what doesn’t, to become more efficient, to become the best. This doesn’t mean that an NGO shouldn’t change and adapt gradually all the time and even branch out to related activities, but it does mean that the same NGO shouldn’t do a spattering of wildly different things, like mediate land conflicts today and teach sewing tomorrow.
Efficiency: When you aren’t an expert at what you are doing and you don’t have a lot of experience, you waste your donors’ time and money – your work is inefficient. You set up projects and perform activities slowly and inefficiently. A recent 5 year multi million dollar project here supported health centers to deliver high quality maternal health – a noble goal. Unfortunately the project took over a year to set up and only actually supported health centers for 2.5 years – half the total project time. The project was doomed to be inefficient from the start, because the organization running the multi-miilion dollar project wasn’t an expert healthcare provider. They had to start from scratch, build a team, hire experts, consult consultants before even getting started.
Healthcare initiatives should only be run by healthcare focused organisation which already provide quality healthcare. Education initiatives should be run by education focused NGOs which which already provide quality educationsupport. When the Against Malaria Foundation” distribute mosquito nets, they don’t waste months and millions of dollars planning and developing the project. What they do isn’t a project at all, it’s their regular work They have distributed nets times before countless times. They know what to do, know the challenges they will face and how to overcome them. They have expertise and experience, which makes them efficient and they don’t waste stacks of generously donated cash.
Evidence: The highest rated NGOs do only one thing. If you aren’t convinced by these arguments, then look at the evidence. I love the adage “An ounce of evidence is worth more than a pound of theory”. Givewell are the biggest organization that looks at which charities are the most cost effective* – charities that do the most good for each dollar they spend. ALL NINE of their top charities , and ALL NINE of their standout charities , do only one thing, and do it well. That’s right, all 18 charities which made their cut, do one thing, do it again and again, and do it well. Keep in mind though that Givewell only rate large NGOs, so many small organisations may also be highly cost effective, but don’t meet their size threshold for assessment.
So when the pitfalls of doing many things badly are so clear, why do most of the most of the biggest NGOs do exactly the opposite? Why do they continue to do many different activities poorly and inefficiently, wasting lots of money?
NGOs follow the money. One major reason NGOs do many different activities, is to chase funding. Every year, the mood of major funders like USAID and DFID changes. One year a funder might give 10 million dollars to agriculture projects, but the next year 5 million to healthcare projects and 5 million to climate change. To access all of these pots of money, your NGO has to have activities in all of these areas. You need an agriculture project AND a healthcare project AND a climate change project. Right now in Northern Uganda, money had been flooding in for agriculture and climate change mitigation, so NGOs (large and small) scramble to design projects to access that cash even if they have no expertise or experience in the are. On the other hand If your NGO specializes in only one activity, you limit the money you can access. Unfortunately, doing a whole lot of activities badly can be a better way to raise money than doing one very well.
“Holistic help” is a better fundraising story than doing one “boring” activity. Stories can be dangerous. Saying “We bought Filder a school uniform, gave her food ever day and paid all her school fees, now she hopes to become a doctor” makes a better story than “we handed out deworming pills to 10,000 school children”. Even though handing out the deworming pills might actually be a better way to spending money helping more Filders become doctors.
Stories that show you’re helping the whole person, or even the whole community bringing about “holistic change” sound wonderful and attract funding, but as charity evaluator Givewell showed with their assessment, holistic approaches don’t work as well as focused ones. You’ll help childrens’ education more by deworming 1000 schoolkids, rather then buying 10 kids a uniform, books and pens. You’ll improve childrens’ health more by giving out 200 malaria nets, then by providing 10 kids with a “holistic” combination of health talks, nutritious food and vegetable seeds. The story isn’t as good, and it goes against our instincts, but we should beware the dangerous “holistic” narrative.
So where should I give my money? My message is simple. Give to NGOs who do one thing, and do it well. This means staying away from many household NGO names. Most big charities have fallen deep into the pattern of doing a wide range of activities, and are horribly ineffective and inefficient. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should only give to the large “Givewell” charities however. There are many other smaller organisations, for example here in Gulu Uganda our own OneDay Health (blatent plug) which provides remote healthcare in remote areas, and a fantastic literacy NGO Read4life that have proven they know how to help kids read, and could use your support
What if my NGO already does many activities? If you’re still doing a wide range different activities, the time to start changing is now. Figure out what you are really good at and focus on that. Work on shifting from an organization that does an average job at 10 things, to an organization that does great job at one (or at least a few) activities.
As always, am super keen to hear your feedback and have a conversation in the comments, on facebook, or through e-mail (which you can findin the “contact” section of the blog”
Many of you had little to be grateful for last year – my heart goes out to you. To those who lost loved ones, your jobs, or even your motivation to keep going, I pray that this 2021 brings renewal and joy. We mourn and laugh together.
I was fortunate enough to have much to be grateful for despite the challenges. I express this gratefulness with some trepidation. Not out pride or competition, but perhaps to spark at a little joy and hope for the year ahead. I am grateful for so many things in 2020. Here are 7.
Grateful for our home, – simple by New Zealand standards, while opulent in the eyes of many Ugandans. Just being at home can fill our cup. “For the homeless and the cosseted, may your home be simple, warm and welcoming”
Grateful that coronavirus largely spared the poorest regionon earth. Here in sub-saharan Africa (besides South Africa), coronavirus hasn’t wreaked havoc. It’s rare to have a global tragedy where the poorest suffer less than the rich, but the respite is welcome.
Grateful that we launched 11 OneDay Health Centers this year, and extend healthcare to tens of thousands of people in remote places. I’m Especially grateful for Emma in Gulu, Josephine in Kitgum and Innocent in Lira who overcame dead months and transport challenges to achieve remarkable things.
Innocent and Fiona launch Chwagere OneDay Health center, which in just 3 months has treated 500 patients
Grateful for my inspirational wife, who will again tomorrow bike 100km on dirt roads to help remote communities both keep their only home, and aspire towards an unlikely but beautiful peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”
Grateful for the overflowing generosity of people who thought beyond themselves during a crisis to give even more than we needed to live here this year, and to support launching health centers, building health centers, peacemaking and co-vid relief. You know who you are.
Grateful for our nurses Elec And Acire, who overcame enormous odds to work with the community and build a beautiful new 4 room health center in Pwunu Dyang. The community now boasts the most remote health center in the Gulu sub-region, more than 4 hours travel from town.
Grateful for one of the best holidays I’ve had in years, with a bunch of fine people who both think and care deeply about the people around them.
Grateful for discovering John Mark Comer, a spiritual teacher who has sparked new insights into our world, our culture and the sorry state of my own heart. I’ve realized more than ever the need to work first on myself, before I leap too fast to judge others.
“love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you“
All around Uganda, people with asymptomatic and mild coronavirus are being locked up in “isolation facilities”, which achieves nothing and endangers the health of both those with coronavirus and the medical staff looking after them. This must stop now.
This is more than just a blog, it’s a plea to the WHO and Ugandan government to stop abusing the human rights of innocent people with coronavirus in isolation facilities around Uganda. People with no symptoms or mild symptoms should be immediately released from the forced isolation centers around the country. In particular the hazardous Namboole stadium which could hold over 1000 people inside should be immediately closed, and the poor people allowed to isolate safely at home
I’m calling out the WHO specifically, because they support the “institutional isolation” initiative both passively through their institutional isolation policy, and actively through membership on the Uganda National Task Force, the body which has instigated this policy in Uganda. The WHO should know better than this, and should not be supporting the policy but rather actively campaigning to stop it. There are at least two fairly obvious reasons why institutional isolation is such a disaster here.
First, the isolation centers are useless, because they don’t slow the spread of coronavirus in Uganda. Second, those with corona are put at higher risk of complications and death and Third, this policy unnecessarily burdens and endangers healthcare workers.
1. The Policy Is Useless
Call me captain obvious but any policy designed to reduce coronavirus spread, should meaningfully reduce coronavirus spread. Nowhere have I seen the flow of thought as to how this policy can help the coronavirus situation in Uganda. Perhaps the WHO and Ugandan government wants to appear like they are acting, even while said action is useless. At first thought, locking people up with corona seems like it should help stop the disease spread but it doesn’t take much investigation to reveal that nothing is achieved.
The reason institutional isolation achieves nothing in Uganda, is because the vast majority cases in Uganda are still out there in the community and never get tested. This is because the number of daily tests in Ugandda is only enough to capture a small percent of all coronavirus cases. Uganda averages around 3500 tests daily, which has barely changed in the last 2 months even as the outbreak has exponentially grown. it’s difficult to secure a test even for sick patients with typical symptoms. As a doctor I’ve failed twice to secure people tests, even while they were sick with typical symptoms. If anyone at home has typicalsymptoms and wants to test, there’s no pathway to a test unless you have lots of money.
Isolating a small minority of cases in quarantine is therefore a pointless endeavor, when most people with covid have never been tested. It’s impossible to accurately estimate the tiny percent of cases that actually test positive here, but I’m going to try. To estimate the proportion of those with covid who are actually testing positive, and being locked up we need to know the daily deaths and mortality rate of coronalvirus.
The ministry reports the number of daily deaths. This month in Uganda, we’ve had on average 1.3 deaths a day reported in Uganda. There will certainly be some covid deaths not picked up, but I’m going to be conservative and use the ministry’s official figures. The mortality rate however is harder to guess, so we’re going to have to rely on surrounding countries. Sub Saharan African countries have a super low Covid mortality rate, which has been estimated in these 3 countries below based on the percentage of the population which has covid antibodies when randomly tested. We haven’t yet had a similar study in Uganda.
Country
Estimated cases
Mortality
Cases per death
Kenya
1,600,000
0.0044%
22,700
Malawi
2,200,000
0.0005%
200,000
South Africa
12,000,000
0.125%
800
South Africa has high rates of obesity and demographics nothing like Uganda, so Malawi and Kenya are far better comparisons. These studies do have major flaw and in my opinion (for Kenya and Malawi at least) underestimate the mortality rate, but they are the best data we have. I’m going to be super conservative, and assume that the mortality rate here could be as high as 10 times that reported in Kenya, which means for every death we would expect 2000 cases. That means with 1.3 deaths per day, at minimum there are 2600 cases of coronavirus every day in Uganda. We currently test around 200 positive cases daily in Uganda, which means that over 90% of people who catch coronavirus in Uganda are never tested, and are out there in the community spreading the virus.
So under 10% of people with coronavirus are actually tested, the rest are out there spreading.
And that’s where Ugandas policy comes in – forcibly isolating under 10% of cases. This achieves close to nothing, as over 90% of the cases are still out there freely spreading the virus
I’ve represented this tragedy visually below.
So the entire purpose of the institutional isolation – to stop virus spread is futile. It’s bad enough sacrificing your time and freedom to help the country stop a virus spreading, but far worse that the sacrifice of the poor souls in isolation achieves nothing
It’s not like the Ugandan national taskforce doesn’t know this. Today Dr. Kobe, Ugandas Covid-19 “incident commander” estimated that 85% of coronavirus cases are never tested in the community, which is similar to my estimate of over 90%. Given that the MOH, WHO and Uganda coronavirus ask force know this, it’s bizzare and unconscionable that they continue to lock people up for no reason.
2. Isolated patients could catch worse illnesses
It’s bad enough that their sacrifice is for nothing, but putting a whole lot of patients who aren’t very sick with coronavirus in a room together is worse than useless – it’s harmful. Secondary infections like TB (not uncommon in Uganda) and pneumonia can spread from patient to patient, especially while their lungs may be more vulnerable while they have corona. There’s no question asymptomatic and mild corona cases would be safer at home then this room in Namboole stadium, Uganda’s largest isolation center
“Do no harm” is a fundamental part of our Hippocratic medical oath. Us medical professions should not for any reason harm further those who are sick. The Ugandan isolation centers violate this fundamental principle, and put those with asymptomatic or mild corona at higher risk of life threatening infections – collateral damage of a useless policy
3. Endangering Medical staff. Not only are people with coronavirus put at risk of catching secondary infections, but medical staff all around Uganda are forced to babysit these people who aren’t sick, and therefore risk catching coronavirus as well. This has many negative consequences.
1. Medical workers catch corona. Already 4 medical workers who were associated with isolation facilities have died of coronavirus. Just yesterday, a nurse at Kapchorwa hospital died because they probably caught coronavirus from someone with corona who they isolated in the hospital. Medical staff are our most valuable health resource and putting them in harms way for no gain is both unfair on the staff and just plain stupid..
2. Health services suffer. After 50 staff tested positive and one nurse died at Kapchorwa Hosptal, they have closed the whole hospital. This closure makes no sense. If all hospital staff in Uganda were tested, some staff would test positive at most hospitals across the country. The risk of spreading coronavirus is nowhere near as high as the risk of closing the hospital and stopping lifesaving services. Even though a nurse has died, the healthcare fallout from closing the biggest hospital in a region where health services are already massively stretched will be enormous. More than 1 person will die because of the closure. This is just one example of health services crumbling under the weight of a nonsense policy
The end result? Human rights abuse
Forcing coronavirus patients into a harmful situation to achieve nothing, is human rights abuse. These poor people with corona who aren’t even sick are removed from their families and put into open wards with many patients, while their children and families receive zero support.
The WHO (and others) are supporting the Ministry of health to abuse the human rights of Ugandans.
And it needs to stop now. It needed to stop a long time ago
Ths Solution is easy. Do what the rest of the world is doing – isolate people at home. As I’ve already shown, isolating people with Covid doesn’t achieve meaningful results anyway, but if the WHO and MOH want to feel like they are doing something to “control” the virus, then they could regularly call people, or even visit people at home to make sure they were complying with isolation.
I’ts my plea to the WHO and Ministry of Health to stop this policy now, and halt this strange and unnecessary episode of human rights abuse. I’ll send this blog to organisations that are supporting MOH efforts, and you never know – someone might have a heart and respond.
NB anyone is keen to follow up with me (Nick) about this, I’d love to hear from you though the blog contact form.
“God lead us to our footpath: Lead us there where in simplicity we may move at the speed of natural creatures and feel the earth’s love beneath our feet Nothing can be loved at speed.”– Leunig
I move far too fast, far too often.
This morning I learnt for the thousandth time the value of moving slowly and openly. Well slowly-ish at least. We bike everywhere here in Gulu. In some ways even biking is still too fast, you still miss a lot. You don’t stop and talk, you don’t cuddle the cat on the corner, you don’t notice anyone’s problems. But biking is slow and open enough at least to smile and greet along the way. It’s slow enough that God at least has the chance to speak.
It’s all too easy no matter where we are in the world to surround ourselves with walls. We leave our 4 walled house, enter our 4 walled car, go to our 4 walled work and then hit repeat. It’s easy to keep walls around your heart when there are always walls around your body.
This morning I biked to work, and had the great pleasure of greeting our community on the way. 7 times I shared a greeting , but 3 of them carried great weight, and I couldn’t get them out of my head.
A man smiled and waved “Otim, bin ka mato kongo” – “Otim, come have a drink with me”. And yes, by “a drink” he means an alcoholic beverage. And yes, it was 8:30 in the morning. I smiled back and yelled “Good morning, thank you” before rolling on. I was struck by how normal and open his brokenness was. Being drunk at 8:30am isn’t great. He wasn’t digging in the fields to make sure his family was fed, or selling chapatis on the side of the road. For whatever reason he was drinking with his mates on the side of the road. By 8:30am already I had already been moved by friendly brokenness.
A 12 year old girl yelled out “Icho Daktar Otim” – “Good morning doctor Otim”. I reflected how my title came before my name. Forget being white, forget being rich, just being a doctor alone grants me a status here that’s hard to fathom. My privilege is always before me, and maybe that’s healthy. By 8:35 am already been confronted with my status.
Lucy towers over Bishop Steve Minor, then NZCMS director
I’ve saved the best until last. Our neighbor Lucy spends her whole life moving slowly, because she doesn’t have the capacity to move fast. This bestows on her several advantages. She knows everyone in the community. People come to her every day for advice, or a story, or a laugh, or for help, for a meal or sometimes all of them at the same time. While we shut our front door too often, hers is always open. In fact she’s usually on the veranda waiting to welcome the next visiting angel.
Every morning when I’m biking out of our compound, she smiles and commands,
“Nick, Mot Lutwo” – “Nick, greet the sick for me”. She doesn’t call me “doctor” like the young woman on the road, I’m Nick her friend, her neighbour . She commands me softly not to cure the sick, or work hard but to greet them and share our humanity. That first, we are a child of God, then everything else. Lucy reminds me that I’m not a machine mending other machines, but a human helping other humans. Today, my work isn’t just about solving problems, it’s first about meeting people where they’re at and offering what I can.
Lucy knows more than most what it’s like to be sick, what it’s like to suffer. She has a condition which means that every few months she suffers much pain and is admitted to hospital. “Greet the sick for me” comes from her heart, out of deep experience and empathy.
She teaches us to move a little slower, be a little more human, a little more alive.
Move slowly, move well.
Tessa, Lucy and Pablo puss!
(The whole Leunig prayer)
“Dear God,
We pray for another way of being: another way of knowing.
Across the difficult terrain of our existence we have attempted to build a highway and in so doing have lost our footpath. God lead us to our footpath: Lead us there where in simplicity we may move at the speed of natural creatures and feel the earth’s love beneath our feet. Lead us there where step-by-step we may feel the movement of creation in our hearts. And lead us there where side-by-side we may feel the embrace of the common soul. Nothing can be loved at speed.
God lead us to the slow path; to the joyous insights of the pilgrim; another way of knowing: another way of being. Amen”.
It’s high time to deepen the discussion about Euthanasia. Cards on the table, I’m against it, but what I’m most concerned about is that we have a serious conversation rather than reducing the discussion to “People have the right to choose” on one side, or “Doctor’s shouldn’t kill people” on the other, which are both unhelpful oversimplifications. Whether we are currently for, or against euthanasia, there’s a good chance we haven’t thought about it hard enough. Euthanasia is a complex and multifaceted issue, there’s no easy way out of the rabbit hole. Here are 5 questions I think we should all ask ourselves before we decide if we are really in favour of Euthanasia.
1) Why are most professionals who work with the dying against euthanasia? Most medical professional associations in New Zealand that work intimately with dying humans don’t support euthanasia. It’s important to consider the thoughts and opinions of people who give themselves every day for those who are suffering and dying.
Why is there such a mismatch between the public, who are overwhelmingly in favour of euthanasia, and end-of-life professionals who are mostly against it?
2) Is one Mistake too many? Mistakes are inevitable in any field, especially medicine. Although tragic, mistakes are acceptable while doctors attempt to save lives. Are mistakes OK while doctors end lives? Last year in New Zealand us medical professionals made many mistakes, including programming a pacemaker wrong which caused a cardiac arrest. One study suggested that 1 in every 25 people sentenced to death in America may be innocent. Is that OK? What if 1 in every 100 humans whose life ended through euthanasia didn’t really want to die? What if perceived or real burden on their family drove them to euthanasia but they never revealed their true thoughts? Or worse received euthanasia after a mis-diagnosed terminal condition?
One 62 year old lawyer was ‘helped’ with assisted suicide in Switzerland after he was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer. On autopsy he was found not to have cancer. He wasn’t going to die. Mistakes happen. Is there an acceptable mistake rate when it comes to euthanasia? Do you agree with famous British Surgeon Henry Marsh when he said “Even if a few grannies get bullied into it, isn’t that the price worth paying for all the people who could die with dignity?”
3) Would some people have changed their mind soon after dying? Many people, after seemingly making the decision to end their life, change their mind and want to continue living. In Oregon, there is a different system from euthanasia where people get prescribed a lethal medication, which they then take themselves. It’s called “physician assisted suicide”. Since 1998, one in every three people didn’t take the lethal drug after being given a prescription. That’s 861 people who went through the whole process of paperwork and psychological evaluation, were given a prescription for the lethal drug then didn’t take it. Obviously it’s fantastic that they changed their mind and chose to keep living, but it disturbs me that so many people could change their mind after such a vigorous process. How many people might have changed their mind a week or a month later after they died of euthanasia?
4) Could euthanasia abuse the vulnerable? Of all vulnerable populations, elderly are most likely to be abused, mostly by those close to them. A 2015 New Zealand report showed that 1 in 10 people over 65 are abused. Rates among Maori are even higher. Will abusive family members pressure elderly to be euthanised? Even in loving families, could elderly people opt for euthanasia because they silently feel like a burden? Disability rights groups have expressed deep concerns about Euthanasia. In the USA, most disability advocacy groups are strongly against Euthanasia, because they can see the potential for people with disabilities to die prematurely due to abuse of the system.
5) Is this really a Progressive vs. Conservative, or Religious vs Non-religious issue?I think it’s helpful to set aside labels, and ideologies. Euthanasia isn’t automatically a “progressive” or “liberal” win, nor a “conservative” loss. Martin “Bomber” Bradbury, a prominent liberal left wing blogger is against euthanasia. On the other hand a minority of christian organisations support euthanasia, for example “Christians for Voluntary euthanasia” in Australia. One Ex Archbishop of Canterbury (Head of the Anglican Church in England) now supports Euthanansia. Should we draw lines and divide into camps on this issue, or instead think deeply and open up respectful discussions with our family and friends?
I encourage you to think through these questions (and more) deeply before coming to a decision. Euthenasia is a complex issue that I’m not sure any of us can fully understand – but we should try our best before we enter the ballot box
Yesterday South Africa suffered the 4th highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, clocking over 12,000 cases. This meant that 2 out of every 3cases in Africa came from only one country, South Africa.
South Africa has a similar population to Uganda, yet has suffered from 300,000 coronavirus cases while Uganda has only just clocked 1000. When it comes to coronavirus in Africa at the moment, we really should focus on South Africa.
It may seem strange that a country with 5% of Africa’s population, made up 70% of the continent’s confirmed cases, but there are a number of reasons which might explain why coronavirus is spreading so rapidly down south.
Why is South Africa suffering?
South Africa is radically different from many other African countries. In fact South Africa has many features similar to European and American countries which have suffered terribly form coronavirus. I hope there’s no-one out there who still thinks Africa is one country, but I’m sure you won’t after reading this!
1) South Africa’s Older Population. Older people are not only have more severe disease, but are more likely to get infected with coronavirus. This nature article estimated that those over 20 years old are twice as likely to catch coronavirus than people under 20. As well as catching it more easily, older people also more likely to spread corona as they are more symptomatic. In South Africa, 4 in 5 people are over 20, while only 2 in 5 Ugandans are over 20 years old! South Africa’s older population facilitates easier spread of coronavirus than in other countries. This lack of spread in younger people a should also make countries like Uganda be less worried than they are about opening schools, but that’s another issue.
2) Most South Africans live in cities. In South Africa, 2 out of every 3 people live in urban areas. Around the world, coronavirus has thrived in busy, packed cities – think of the disasters in Milan, London and New York. Here in Uganda only 1 in 4 people live in urban areas, a minority of the population.
3) Colder Temperatures. We know that hot weather doesn’t stop coronavirus, but it does slow spread a little. Here’s the forecast for Johannesburg this week, perhaps not what you would expect – lows of 3 degrees!!!
4) Obesity Epidemic. South Africa has THE HIGHEST obesity rates in Sub-saharan Africa. More than 1 in 4 adults are obese, similar to Australia, Mexico and the UK. In Uganda on the other hand only 1 in 20 adults are obese. Higher obesity rates increase virus spread as obese people are more likely to have symptomatic disease, and therefore more likely to spread it to others. Obese people are also more likely to catch influenza, and this may well be the same for coronavirus although there isn’t yet solid evidence to support this this theory.
With all those factors driving the terrible outbreak, we hope South Africa’s public health measures and decent health system can control the spread soon. Unfortunately even if theyturn the corner in the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be many months before South Africa has coronavirus truly under control.
Our friend James has been at home from school for 3 months. His home situation is tough and while he’s been off school he got in with the wrong crowd, was taken to the police station and threatened with prison. He’s currently farming in the village learning nothing. Coronavirus has his life course is now teetering on the edge when it was on the right track. All because schools are still closed.
Uganda’s decision to keep schools closed may be one of the worst decisions that the government has made in their recent history, yet few people are complaining. While the IMF and World Bank are lining the pockets of Uganda’s corrupt government, I haven’t heard of any call or any pressure from them or others in the international community pressuring Uganda to re-open their schools. There isn’t much complaint locally either, in the news or on the streets. It’s strange that barely anyone is protesting against a decision which will un-necessarily hurt Ugandans on a huge scale for years to come.
Before I start this thinly veiled rant well reasoned blog, I actually agreed with the decision to close all Ugandan educational institutions back in March. At the time, Covid was wreaking havoc around the globe and we didn’t know how it might affect Uganda. It was a bold, early decision that seemed prudent. But the outbreak here has not just been less severe than expected, it hasn’t even got off the ground. I’m not going to cover why exactly the outbreak might be so slow in Uganda. We really don’t know, but if you’re
interested I have mused about this elsewhere.
Coronavirus isn’t killing Ugandans’
Uganda has one of the slowest Co-vid outbreaks in the world – if you can even call it an outbreak. Only around 700 people have tested positive, and not one person has died!
Let me repeat that, not one person has died.
There is only one country in the world with a larger population than Uganda (Vietnam) which also has no deaths. They have already re-opened their schools
To put this in context, in the 3 month period of Covid malaria may have infected around 3,000,000 Ugandans and killed 5000 people (estimated from global burden of disease). I tried to make a graph to compare the burden of the two conditions, but it didn’t work because the scale difference was so big. It’s kind of like those pictures where you compare the size of the Sun to the earth.
Yet out of fear of a disease which hasn’t killed one person we still have to wait one month to find out when schools are opening, or if they will open this year at all.
But why is closing schools such a big deal? If it can help prevent the spread of coronavirus why not be cautious? For a start we may have a year with no new doctors, nurses or teachers trained in Uganda, but the effects run far deeper. Here are just 3 of many reasons why closing schools for more than 6 months in Uganda is not just an inconvenience, but a disaster.
1) Children go BACKWARDS
Closing schools has a far more drastic effect than just lost education time. Children FORGET what they already know. This means they don’t start again where they left off, they instead have to RE-LEARN what they previously knew, but have now forgotten. This means that after 6 months off school, it might take another 2 or 3 months just to get back to their previous level. If Uganda closes their schools for 9 months, it may be equivalent to more than a year of lost education. This problem has been recognized even in countries like America, where unlikely Uganda most children are able to be home schooled.
2) INEQUALITY is exacerbated Richer kids (especially in Kampala), can still learn when school is off. Their parents are empowered and able to teach them. They can learn on the internet. Their parents can buy them work books and reading books. They might even not go backwards, but can still progress while they are out of school.
The situation for poor kids in the village (75% of Ugandan children) is worlds apart. Kids have either sporadic access to educational radio, or no access to learning at all. They don’t have books to write in or read from. They dig every morning to provide food for the family, then play at home. They barely learn anything new, and will go backwards. Every month schools are closed, the inequality between kids in the village and kids in Kampala becomes worse. School closures causing exacerbated inequality has been well documented around the world, by developed and developing countries alike, and in Uganda will be as bad as anywhere in the world.
3) LIVES WILL BE SHORTENED.
There is a strong association between education level and reduced life expectancy. People with lower levels of education (primary school), live shorter lives on average than those with higher levels of education (secondary school or above). It’s impossible to prove that lower levels of education CAUSE lower life expectancy, but especially in developing countries like Uganda it makes sense that poor education means you are more likely to die younger.
Poor education leads to poverty, which means you are more likely to live in unsanitary living conditions, more likely to have poor access to healthcare, more likely to die in childbirth because you can’t reach a hospital. In Uganda even more so than richer countries where this link has been studied, less education may shorten your life. It’s entirely possible that the effect of lost education alone, may cause more lost years of life than coronavirus.
Figure from “Netherlands, health systems review: 2016” European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Other countries are reopening schools
The Co-vid situation in South Africa is ominous, with colder weather, large urban slums and an Obese population paving the way for a far worse outbreak than we will ever have here. South Africa yesterday suffered from 3174 cases with 74 deaths. The way things are going in Uganda, we may not reach 74 deaths from Covid this year, let alone in one day. And what are South Africa doing despite the outbreak? They are opening their schools! Their government knows how much more important education is than perhaps preventing a handful of coronavirus deaths. South Africa’s approach is mirrored by most countries around the world. Uganda is in a small minority of countries making the tragic decision to close schools for an extended period.
A solution?
I don’t usually like to write without proposing some kind of solution. Here it’s tricky, but there’s a few actions that just might push the government to open schools sooner than they would have otherwise.
1) The international community should pressure Uganda to re-open their schools. Large organisations who grant loans and aid like the USA, the IMF and World Bank could use their leverage to force re-opening of schools.
2) The WHO should stress the importance of education and keeping schools open. At the moment they are only doubling down on contact tracing and lockdowns. They need to recognize the public health importance of education, and publically encourage countries to open as soon as possible when outbreaks are under control.
3) Most importantly, Ugandans need to demand that their government re-opens schools. Museveni is a populist. If enough Ugandans kicked up a fuss he might consider re-opening them, as it doesn’t hurt him at all. It might not even take that much fuss! At the moment motorcycle taxis are holding demonstrations around the country, but I haven’t heard a whisper about schools, and everyone has children. Everyone is affected.
Education is the key to Uganda’s future. The benefit of opening schools now would be enormous, while the consequences of keeping them closed are monumental. Let’s not let a virus which has killed zero people further cripple the future of the country.
