Dr. Peter Mwaba is the son of a miner from the copperbelt region of Zambia. Of the group of 600 Zambians who achieved their medical degrees in Lusaka between 1978 and 1999, he is one of only 50 who remain. He has chosen to dedicate his life to fighting AIDS and the other health crises in Zambia on two crucial fronts. As the Chief of Medicine at the only teaching hospital in Zambia, he is training new health care workers for his country - cajoling and educating his young doctors with humor and bravado. But Dr. Mwaba realizes there is more to his struggle. To provide the immediate care that is required, he helped found an AIDS hospice and community-based treatment center just miles from the teaching hospital. Along with his colleagues, he has created a model program using women in the community to provide health care.
The world needs 4.3 million more doctors, midwives and nurses to meet its health care needs. These needs are most keenly felt in Africa, where an impoverished population with the highest burden of diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis has the fewest doctors - in some areas only one physician for every 20,000 people. Unfortunately, this aspect of health care barely registers on the public radar. With money now becoming available for AIDS therapy and other diseases, it is the human resource crisis that is the real key to the puzzle. This is true not just for Africa, but anywhere that health care is restricted by a lack of qualified caregivers. What is to be done? The first step is to increase awareness of the problem. The second step is to point to the directions for a solution. “A Year in the Life: Healing Africa” seeks to put a human face on this problem.