Canterbury
by Roland Ashby
Spouses Programme Communication
Twenty-eight thousand children die each day from largely preventable diseases. Every minute of every day eight babies die following pregnancy and one woman dies from pregnancy-related complications.
Dr. Yuji Kawaguchi of the World Health Organisation related these and other startling figures, as part of a major presentation to the bishops' spouses at the Lambeth Conference on July 22.
Speaking on the theme "A Healthy World?, Strategies for Hope," Dr. Kawaguchi and other experts addressed key health issues facing the world.
In 1997, Dr Kawaguchi said, 5.8 million people were newly infected with HIV, and 2.3 million people died from AIDS.
He warned that if the world's mean temperature increases by only one to two centigrades, as recent scientific studies suggest, then mosquitoes may extend their range to new geographical areas, leading to increased cases of malaria and other infectious diseases.
He also expressed concern about the susceptibility of infants and children to the increase in the use of chemicals worldwide.
Allocating resources
Sheila Ramalshah, wife of the Bishop of Pakistan, described Pakistan's allocation of only two percent of its income to health care as "abysmal." She said, "It seems that the powers that be have decided that it is more important to spend about 70 percent of the nation's income on militarism and the related repayment of international debt. Such a situation means that we are woefully ill-equipped . . . to serve our community through health care."
She said that diseases related to women were being especially aggravated by Pakistan's social structure. "In my area of the North Western Frontier Province, women can only be heard and not seen, except behind the high walls of their dwellings. Their lives become so domesticated and mechanised they are primarily perceived as child-producing machines. As for sexually related disease amongst women, we dare not even guess the true reality."
Mrs. Ramalshah said that the "whole issue of HIV positive and AIDS is still a taboo subject in our society. We are quite convinced there must be a lot of cases of this nature in our diocese - especially as homosexuality is rampant there. But there is neither public awareness nor any public debate on these issues."
She said that she and her husband often felt "frustrated in sharing these needs with the western churches, who often react to them as if the church is wasting its resources by seemingly duplicating societal programmes," and challenged the church "to be true and obedient to its call to servanthood by meeting the needs of the suffering people."
Protecting women from AIDS
Mrs. Juliana Okine, wife of the Bishop of Ghana, attributed Ghana's growing AIDS problem to "the unlimited matrimonial powers that husbands generally wield over their wives . . . when it comes to contraception and AIDS protection. The fact that only the male condom is widely available in itself gives a promiscuous man power to sentence a woman to death if he will not use a condom.
Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island (USA) strongly criticised the American health care system. "I stand here . . . as a citizen of the most technically advanced country in the world with regard to health care . . . (and yet) if you're unemployed or in part-time work in America health care is difficult to attain."
Captain Ian Campbell, International Health Programme Consultant for the Salvation Army, advocated a more integrated community development approach to the care of those suffering with AIDS, in which hospitals, clinics and churches offer community counselling, education and support in partnership with people in the home, neighbourhood and local community.
Dr. David Gitari, Archbishop of Kenya, said that most of the illness in his diocese was preventable. "Many people catch water-borne diseases such as typhoid, dysentery and cholera. They only need to be told to boil water, even the tap water, before they drink it."
He said simple education programs had been most effective in tackling the problems.
"Parish-selected community health workers, after just eight weeks training in the treatment and prevention of our six most common diseases, return to their parishes to conduct seminars," he said. "Whenever I preach I also spend a few minutes explaining the importance of boiling water before drinking it.'
The final speaker, Mr. Hugh Bailey, MP for York and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Frank Dobson, the British Secretary of State for Health, said the government believed the answer to social and health problems lay in people deciding to take responsibility at every level.
"Our strategy for health, and for hope . . . is one which very much emphasises responsibility. But not just at the individual (and local community) level. The government accepts responsibility to do those things which only government can do."