Date Published | Dec. 20, 2007

BY NORM TOLLINSKY

Canadians love to gripe about physician shortages, emergency room wait times and long queues for MRIs, but three Laurentian University students have a better appreciation for how good we have it after volunteering at a hospital in Zimbabwe earlier this year.

Sarah Argent, currently in her fourth year of Laurentian’s Health Promotion program, Lilla Roy, a fourth year nursing student and Reed Morrison, a graduate student working on a Masters degree in Human Kinetics, spent two and a half weeks delivering babies, comforting HIV/AIDS patients and teaching high school students at Howard Hospital, 80 kilometres north of the country’s capital, Harare.

Accompanying them was Dr. Michel Lariviere, a clinical psychologist and professor at Laurentian.

The 144-bed Salvation Army hospital serves a population of 250,000 and operates on an annual budget of $40,000.

One of the most troubled counties in the world, Zimbabwe is wracked by political oppression and grinding poverty. The average life expectancy for men is 37 years, for women 34. Almost a quarter of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS, 80 per cent are unemployed and inflation was running at 3,000 per cent per year and rising during the students’ two and a half week visit.

The hospital has male, female and children’s wards, a maternity ward, a therapeutic feeding ward, basic diagnostic imaging equipment, a blood-testing lab and an operating room. It also provides a Home Based Care service for patients in outlying villages who are too ill to travel to the hospital.

The mission was the brainchild of Health Promotion student Sarah Argent, who worked closely with university professors and administrators to plan the trip and to ensure that all precautions were taken for the students’ safety.

Organized under the umbrella of the Faculty of Professional Schools’ Health Promotion Without Borders program, the mission broadened the students’ horizons and provided them with an opportunity to understand some of the health-care challenges faced by third world countries.

Argent originally hoped for an annual Health Promotion Without Borders mission to Howard Hospital. However, all agreed that it would be too dangerous to return to Zimbabwe next year because of possible violence in the aftermath of a presidential election planned for March.

Laurentian’s Health Promotion program is one of five programs offered by the university’s School of Human Kinetics. Students graduate with a Bachelor of Physical and Health Education and have a broad range of options for further studies, said program co-ordinator Ginette Michel.

Four Health Promotion graduates are currently enrolled at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Others go on to become chiropractors, physical and occupational therapists and teachers.

During their two and a half weeks at Howard Hospital, Laurentian students encountered illnesses and diseases like polio, hydroencephalitis and clubfeet that are rarely seen in Canada. They taught Biology, Computer Studies and Physical Activity classes to high school students and learned about some unconventional health promotion techniques at Howard Hospital, where a character dubbed Gypsy Joe uses puppet shows to warn HIV/AIDS patients to steer clear of traditional healers, and to take all of their medication as prescribed instead of saving it for a rainy day when they start to feel better.

Readers interested in assisting Howard Hospital with donations of medical supplies and equipment can e-mail Dr. Paul Thistle, Chief Medical Officer at pthistle@healthnet.zw. Dr. Thistle, originally from Scarborough, Ontario, is an obstetrician/gynecologist and a graduate of the University of Toronto.

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