New Year, New Things (Maybe Like a New Public Health Order?)

Disclaimer: Laughter is the best medicine, as such, there are some terribly shaped flat illusioned jokes for your consumption (like this one)

Just like every final week of December (and by extension the last week of the Gregorian calendar), we find ourselves sitting down in that confusing period between Christmas and New Year thinking of the year that has been and the year that is about to start and sometimes have found ourselves in the rush of

New Year, New Beginnings,

New Resolutions

As we gear up to the turn of the new year, this article is to furnish you with one more new thing to factor in i.e. The New Public Health Order by the Africa CDC.

This article was planned for week 1 of 2023, but has been fast-tracked and modified, after reading Arsen Muhumuza Op-Ed entitled "New public health order in Africa without surgical care is incomplete." (and an interesting discourse with him on the same)

So What is The New Public Health Order?

Before I jump into my analysis and views of issues highlighted in the article, let us recap what the New Public Health Order is. A video explanation available is available here and a summary diagram below (PS: I'll tackle health workforce and leadership programs in a future article)

The Article, The Global Surgery Rabbit Hole and Everything Else in Between (New Public Health Order-wise)

So what is Global Surgery (I'll refer to it as GS from now on), GS simply put is,

Global surgery is?the study and practice of improving access to timely, quality, and affordable surgical care

What MC Thinks Works for GS 1: Global Surgery encompasses all surgical disciplines i.e Surgical, Obstetrical, Trauma and Anaesthesia (SOTA). Hence the Hashtag #SOTACare4All

What MC Thinks Works for GS 2: There has been growing advocacy by a number of organizations for #SOTACare4All. Organizations like InciSioN - International Student Surgical Network and more lobbyed for creation and inclusion of a Global Surgery Day on May 25th each year (I have a bias for mentioning student-led organizations / old hats)

MC's?watermelon?/ observation: Whilst, I agree with Arsen's observation that Global Surgery discussions rarely have an audience in non-SOTA events, I am hesitant about us going down rabbit hole of saying the Order misses one discipline (or another). The Order is just a skeleton for us to add the remaining parts to make our health systems work

PS: if you have never seen a rabbit hole in your life, you can seek solace and visualize a silo, because we are technically creating one with this approach.... If you a city dweller like me, we shall fill our festive appetites by Google (this is one of the amoebiod shaped jokes to laugh at)

MC's?watermelon?/ observation: #SOTACare4All depends on functional health systems, something the New Public Health Order is broadly trying to address e.g. the leadership and governance needed to get the partnerships and the right diagnostics and therapeutics to address a Cleft Palate case is the same one needed to address Malnutrition or Diabetes on in Africa

MC's?watermelon?/ observation: For more Global Surgery discussions and awareness to take place, we need to broaden the audience to include those not converted i.e. having GS side events in non-SOTA events

My best example for this was Smile Train Concurrent Session at the Global Health Council Global Health Landscape Symposium #GHLS2022

The session covered a broad topic that we all think about (knowing or unknowingly) and had a panelist from Smile Train correlate the topic to their efforts in addition to panelists from Women in Global Health and Economist Impact (reference to the program for specifics on the panelist and moderator)

Fun fact: I asked a session question on my Twitter Handle and it had interesting results (link). You can also check my Twitter thread for key messages and my reflections from the event.

MC's Key Questions From all This Rumbling

1. What efforts are there to break down the New Public Health Order to the Community? Arsen gave his input worth considering, but for the healthcare workers who follow me are you aware of the order and how it affects your work? (comment below) and what will you do towards advocating for this and tying it to other policy documents (especially national ones)
2. The Order does tie into the Africa Union's efforts of Agenda 2063: The Africa We want. How does it also fit into the SDGs? UHC2030? and most of all how do all the aforementioned fit in the Healthcare worker training curriculum? especially in the public health training at undergraduate level?

PS: I am still disturbed that I will be closer to geriatric age group to see if the Agenda 2063 will be actualized. Anyway with another hat, we had a discussion two years ago on the The African Union Agenda 2063 and its Role in Healthcare from a Health Students Lens, you can watch it here

Is it 2023 yet? The rumblings continue in 2023 (for real this time). Feedback is always welcome either via LinkedIn or?email

Disclaimer: Rumblings expressed in this article are my own.