The story follows the arc of Dr. Peter Mwaba and his colleagues. The son of a miner from the copperbelt region of Zambia, he went to the sole medical school in the capital city Lusaka. Enormously talented and energetic, he completed a PhD in microbiology in England in just two years. He is unique in other ways: of the group of 600 Zambians who achieved their medical degrees 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 the new cadre of health care workers for his country- cajoling and educating his young doctors with humor and bravado. The film follows his role as a teacher, and traces the decisions his medical residents face, telling the story of who stays in Zambia, who leaves, and why. But Dr. Mwaba realizes there is more to his struggle than the medical school. It takes years to train a qualified doctor, while people are dying by the thousands now in sub-Saharan Africa. 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 training of these community-based health workers, and the stories of the lives and deaths of the hospice residents, will be followed as well. Apart from the narrative of these African healers and their work, the film will be framed by interviews with eloquent and persuasive leaders in public health and poverty reduction.
The world needs 4.3 million more doctors, midwives and nurses to meet its health care needs, and the vast majority of this need is in poor countries. The Millennium Development Goals agreed to by 189 countries in the year 2000 included several admirable health targets, such as reducing child mortality by two thirds, but these goals will never be met if there are not enough health providers. 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 on the order of 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 of improving the lot of millions of men, women, and children. This is true not just for Africa, but anywhere where health care is restricted by a lack of qualified caregivers. Whatâs 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. An active media campaign plans to disseminate the film through public television, as well as through medical schools, universities, and public health schools, where it can have the greatest impact on future health care providers.