2007 Dignity and Right to Health Award

World AIDS Day Announcement December 1

2007 Dignity and Right to Health Award Recipient is Dr Ruth Nduati

Dear Friends and colleagues,

The winner of the ICMDA HIV Initiative 2007 Dignity and Right to Health Award is Dr Ruth Nduati. Dr Ruth Nduati is a model for and encouragement to us all. She has through her work, service and witness achieved much for the Kingdom. She received Christ as Lord and Saviour into her life at the age of 11 years. She is currently the choir mistress of her church in Karen on the outskirts of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. Ruth is a member of the Christian Women's Doctors Fellowship in Nairobi. As a medical doctor she has over the years been a great leader and advocate for women and children’s health issues.

Ruth NDUATI,

MB.Ch.B., M.Med(Paed), Cert. Tropical Med., MPH (Epidemiology and International Health, Fellow of Primary Health Care East Africa.

Prof. Ruth Nduati is Associate Professor of Paediatrics, Epidemiologist and Consultant Paediatrician in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Faculty of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi. She is a member of the Kenya Paediatric Association, the Ghent International Working Group on prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV, and member of the World Health Organization strategic and technical advisory committee for HIV/AIDS. She sits on the Kenyan National Technical Committee for PMTCT and Paediatric HIV. Prof. Nduati's areas of professional interest include research on prevention of PMTCT of HIV, especially though breastfeeding, and the translation of research findings into standards of care for children.

As consultant paediatrician at Kenyatta National
Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya, she teaches post-graduate doctors,
undergraduate medical students and paediatric clinical officers in paediatrics. Her special teaching interests are prevention of HIV,
treatment of HIV infected children and infant feeding. Through this training she has been instrumental in improving hospital service delivery. This has improved the quality of care available to the public.

Her current research focuses on Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, paediatric AIDS and Child Health and Operational research on implementation of PMTCT and paediatric HIV treatment programs.

Her research on infant feeding and paediatric HIV is recognized by WHO and UN. Locally she is managing a grant that is integrating PMTCT into 338 government health facilities.

Since she works mainly with women in ANC clinics she empowers them to protect themselves. She trains HIV positive women to be peer counsellors and has developed a video on PMTCT. She has established a breastfeeding peer support group that is fighting HIV in Kenya As a Christian Ruth sees her role as a special grace from God to be able to serve His people. She does not do private practice because she is committed to serving in this God given public duty. Ruth supports church training programs for their workers and “trainers of trainers.”

Jean Kagia, a colleague, asked the Dean of the Medical School to summarize Ruth and this is what she said: 'Prof. Nduati is an excellent worker who is meticulous and attends to details. She is focused and does everything to complete any task. She is also a good steward of funds. Finally she is a peace maker. I feel that she deserves this award'.

Ruth is married to Peter H Nduati. She is mother to 3 children aged 23years, 19 years and 6 years.

We congratulate Ruth Nduati on being a most worthy recipient of the 2007 ICMDA HIV initiative "Dignity and Right to Health Award".

Should internet be available to you, we invite you to access Prof Nduati’s presentation to the 2006 International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference, August 2006, Toronto, Canada.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=1839

Three Nominees for the Dignity and Right to Health Award 2007.

A Call for Nominations for the second Dignity and Right to Health Award was launched on August 1. Nominations were accepted until October 20, 2007. Three people are nominated.

The three nominees are

1. Dr Ruth Nduati, a paediatrician, from Kenya
2. Dr Chris Brooks, a primary care physician, a Canadian working in Malawi

3. Dr. Lydia Sebuyira, an infectious diseases specialist, from Uganda

We have a committee of review of seven that will assess each nomination. This process will lead to the 2007 winner being announced on December 1, 2007 - World AIDS Day.

Nominee #1

Ruth NDUATI, MBCHB, MMED, MPH, Kenya
Children and AIDS
Prof. Ruth Nduati is Associate Professor of Paediatrics, Epidemiologist and Consultant Paediatrician for the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Faculty of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi. She is a member of the Kenya Paediatric Association,the Ghent International Working Group on prevention of mother to child transmission (MTCT) of HIV, and member of the World Health Organization strategic and technical advisory committee for HIV/AIDS. Prof. Nduati’s areas of professional interest include research on prevention of MTCT of HIV, especially though breastfeeding, and the translation of research into standards of care for children (Kaiser network, 2006)

If you are fortunate enough to have internet access you can see Dr Nduati's presentation at the 2006 IAS conference in Toronto, Canada.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=1839

Nominee #2

Dr Chris Brooks is a model, a challenge and an encouragement to us all.

Dr. Brooks' story simply touched many hearts. Nine years ago, Dr. Brooks had a privileged, comfortable life in Calgary, Canada. Besides his wife, Heather, and daughter Chloe, now 11 years old, he had a thriving medical practice, a membership at Priddis Green Golf Club, a home on Lake Midnapore and a "1964-and-a-half Mustang convertible, white", which he still pines over.

Dr. Brooks, now 68, and Heather decided to give all of that up after they heard a missionary from Malawi speak to their congregation at First Assembly Church. The missionary told the congregation that for a population of 12 million people in Malawi there were less than 100 doctors. Dr Brooks is the founder of Lifeline Malawi.

Lifeline Malawi Association (LM), an independent Canadian humanitarian medical relief and development organization headquartered in Calgary , Alberta, Canada, is dedicated to providing medical aid without discrimination to the peoples of developing countries. LM fulfills its vision of "Bringing life-transforming hope and healing to the nation ofMalawi" through a community-based medical clinic delivery model, utilizing partnerships with other like-minded organizations. Our mission is accomplished by providing:
-A replicable Centre of Excellence that delivers rural based:
o Primary health care, such as disease prevention and treatment

o VCT programs which address the reality of HIV/AlDS

o Maternity programs
-Appropriate medicines, without cost, through pharmaceutical partnerships

-Trained healthcare professionals to provide quality assessment and care
-Leadership for community ownership and self sustainment by implementing community-based health education programs
-Partnerships with other organizations for hygiene, safe water and sanitation programs -Means to generate revenue within the community (i.e. Maize mill)

HISTORY:
Lifeline Malawi established its first medical outreach in the lakeshore community of Ngodzi, where there were no medical facilities, clean water or even sufficient food. Ngodzi is a rural community of 40,000 people approx. 100km southeast of the capital city of Lilongwe. Although there were other established mission groups in the area, health conditions and medical needs of the local Yao tribes people were desperate, as there are were no trained medical personnel and there no access to medicines.
Dr .Brooks initially ( 1998) worked with a small staff to provide a part-time medical presence in the community .In September 2001, he opened a new eight room medical clinic on land donated by the community. Since then, the Ngodzi property has been developed. through donations raised in Canada, the United States, France and the U .K, into a medical complex offering full-time medical and health-related services to Ngodzi and the surrounding communities. In November 2003, two (2) full time nurses began working in the clinic & living in two (2) newly built homes located within the complex. In August 2004, Andrew Boettcher, from Calgary, Alberta, relocated with his family to Malawi, where he assumed the two (2) year role of President & Executive Field Director. In 2005, with the granting of National Aids Commission funding, Lifeline Malawi became an approved Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) center with the ability to provide anti-retroviral (ARVs) to HIV positive persons. Thanks to the generous support of Samaritan's Purse, the primary medical clinic was significantly expanded to include space for the mv / AillS related programs.

Nominee #3

Dr Lydia Mpanga Sebuyira

BM BCh, MA (Oxon.), MRCP (UK)
Head of Training Department, Infectious Diseases Institute, Faculty of Medicine, Makerere University

Dr Lydia Mpanga Sebuyira is a Ugandan Palliative Care physician who trained at Oxford University, and worked in Oxford, Bath, Newcastle –upon- Tyne, Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the UK before returning to Uganda in 1996. She entered Palliative Care initially through doing a locum for a friend in St Benedict’s Hospice in Sunderland and continued her interest by joining Hospice Africa Uganda as a Visiting Consultant Physician, and later as Ugandan Counterpart to the Medical Director, alongside her job as a lecturer in Makerere University Medical School.

Lydia and her family then moved temporarily to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where she worked for 18 months as consultant to the HIV/AIDS programme of St Francis Hospice. Since their return to Uganda in January 2003, Lydia initially worked as Director of Clinical Services and Clinical Education, and between August 2004 and July 2007, as Director of Education at Hospice Africa Uganda. In August 2007, she took up the position of Head of Training Department at the Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University. She was the founder President, and is presently a Board Member of the Palliative Care Association of Uganda, and a member of the Education Sub-Committee of the African Palliative Care Association. She is Principle Investigator for an International collaborative research project, “Improving care through the prevention of suffering: palliative care for patients and families in Sub-Saharan Africa”. Lydia has acted as a consultant for the WHO 5 country Palliative Care Project, with responsibility for Tanzania and Zimbabwe, funded by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Lydia is married and has two sons and a daughter.