Letter from the President: expanding and deepening our partnerships
Letter from President Lowell Bryan.
Dear Friends,
The first few months of 2007 have been exciting here at Touch. As we accelerate our work to redevelop the medical university and teaching hospital of Weill Bugando, we are both deepening our existing relationships and engaging new partners to leverage our impact for Tanzania.
In February we were able to travel to Mwanza to participate in the official renaming celebration of the Bugando medical complex as ‘Weill Bugando’. Together with Bugando management, the Tanzanian Minister for Health David Mwakyusa and other regional officials, and hundreds of staff and students from the hospital and university, we honored the support of Joan and Sandy Weill towards the development of the institution.
We are happy with the impact of the visiting fellows and residents pilot program that has been sending Weill Cornell physicians to Bugando since January for rotations as clinical instructors. In addition to extending support for this program for another year, we will also be joining with Weill Cornell to support two physicians to work at Bugando for two to three years beginning this summer. These doctors will play a critical role at Bugando by augmenting the number of senior physicians available to provide clinical instruction and guidance for the younger Tanzanian doctors and medical students.
While health worker training remains our core mission, we know that there are many components beyond classroom education that are required to equip health workers to change their health system. In our efforts to transform Bugando Medical Centre into a first rate teaching hospital, we have contracted a team of experts from Johns Hopkins Medical International to perform a comprehensive needs assessment of BMC, covering all aspects of the hospital from administration and systems, to equipment needs and vital infrastructure such as plumbing and airflow.
We are also engaged in discussions with major global philanthropic institutions, the U.S. government, and various other national governments regarding ways in which the knowledge and skills we are developing at Weill Bugando can be leveraged to impact the larger Lake Zone region of Tanzania, and ultimately the national health system. A regional approach would address large systemic issues and would determine the proper pipeline of healthcare workers for the entire region, benefiting up to 12 million Tanzanians. Just as Weill Bugando is providing knowledge and skills that would guide a regional initiative, the regional initiative would in turn provide key lessons for expanding capacity building to the national level.
Our relationship with the Tanzanian government continues to grow as we work within their strategy framework to increase healthcare worker training capacity and bolster the health system. In December, Minister for Health Mwakyusa requested our involvement with the Twiga HRH Initiative, a proposal to perform a nationwide investigation of HRH training capacity and strengthen this capacity throughout the country. We will continue to work with the government over the next several months as this proposal is solidified.
Asante Supper 2007 is fast approaching, and we look forward to sharing a wonderful evening with many of you on June 13th at the Waldorf in New York City. With the leadership of Weill Bugando and Tanzanian ministerial officials in attendance, we will be honoring the extraordinary MD and paramedical students of Weill Bugando who have chosen to dedicate their lives to improving healthcare in their country. We hope that you will join us in honoring their commitment, and supporting their continued hard work.
We are all very excited by the progress we are making, and the relationships we are developing with key partners working in global health and philanthropy. In these pages you will read about only some of the efforts taking place to transform Weill Bugando, but they represent the climate of growth and progress that your support has allowed us to create.
We are grateful for your involvement in our work, and hope for your continued interest and support.
Warmest regards,
Lowell Bryan