People always ask me how someone with a Marketing degree ended up into Public Health, and I say its by the grace of God. A year before graduating with my degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln I sat and thought about what I was going to do after graduation. After being in the US for more than 16 years I missed my family and home so much. My heart was still at home and I made a choice to go back to Malawi and use what I heard learned to make a difference in my native country. I made plans for my big move. First I bought my car from Japan and had it shipped to Malawi, packed my things up and shipped them on pallets, and finally bought my ticket home. What a long journey home it was; 2 days in a plane made me so exhausted that I ended up losing my camera and iPod at the Addis Ababa airport. But as soon as the plane closed in on Kamuzu Inernatiotional Airport a great joy and sense of belonging came over me and I knew that I made the right choice to return to Malawi.
That was April 16th, 2010 and I will never forget it as long as I live.
Being home among the family and friends I had not seen for almost two decades was unlike any feeling I can describe. My job hunt began about 3 months after my return, but yielded no results. Feeling defeated, my mother advised me to look for volunteering opportunities to keep me busy while job hunting. I went to Lighthouse Trust, an HIV clinic, to inquire about volunteering, and I was referred to the Human Resources Manager. I remember he said “Wonderful, we need doctors, nurses and counselors,” and I thought well, there is no opportunity for me here. He was very humble and easy to talk to. He then asked me what I was good at, and I told him I was good at keyboarding and he suggested I email him my resume and if anything came up he would contact me. A week later I was surprised when he contacted me to tell me about an opportunity for a temporary data entry clerk position. I consider him my guardian Angel because without him I would not be where I am today.
After successfully getting the position, I spent three months entering data on a patient tracking program called Back to Care. After that I became a Study Assistant. I loved my job because I had an opportunity to interact with people. I recruited patients for a patient study, and at times conducted interviews, allowing me to learn a bit about people from different backgrounds. I loved getting to know each and every one of the patients and hear their stories and being part of their healing. After being away from Malawi for over half my life, this position also helped me strengthen my Chichewa skills, since a majority of the clients in the study could only communicate in Chichewa. My supervisors saw how dedicated I was to my job and gave me the opportunity to coordinate the Back to Care.
I just couldn’t believe that in less than a year and a half I went from a data clerk to becoming the Back to Care coordinator. The fact that they had so much faith in me motivated me to work even harder. The team consisted of five men, and at first I underestimated myself thinking about how I am going to manage these men who were all older than me. Having knowledge of the program beforehand also helped me a lot because it did not take me long to understand my duties. This also helped with my relationship with the team. I was not afraid to get my hands dirty, meaning I was hands-on and would fill in whenever needed to get the job done. This was something new for the team, and strengthened my relationship with them even more. This position allowed me to get involved with the patients even more. Interviewing them about their experiences with our clinic and seeing how we could make our services better so that we could reduce the number of patients that were defaulting on HIV treatment was very rewarding and eye-opening for me.
I was the voice of the patients and responsible for giving feedback back to our clinic on how we could make our services better. It always pained me seeing patients who were visibly sick and were prescribed drugs only to be told at the pharmacy that the medicines were out of stock and they would have to buy them at a higher price at the private pharmacy. I felt so helpless knowing that most of the patients did not have funds to buy the medicines and were most likely just going to go home without them. I remember at times patients from Salima district, over 103kms from Lilongwe, were referred to Lighthouse to secure Vincristine (a medication used for Kaposi sarcoma cancer) when hospitals in Salima were out. Thinking about how many patients were just sitting at home not receiving medicines because their nearest health facility did not have the medications they needed motivated me to apply for the Operations and Supply chain Fellowship at GHC so that I could be a part of finding solution to this critical problem.
My position at Back to Care allowed me to fully appreciate the importance and impact of Public Health on the welfare of our country and its people. I realize that Public Health does not only have to mean working in a hospital setting, but also involves working from a multitude of different sectors. As an Operations and Supply Chain Fellow I don’t have that one to one contact with the patients but I know the impact I am having every time we dispatch a truck load of drugs going to the different health facilities is equally as important. I get a sense of satisfaction when I walk in the warehouse and see racks and racks of drugs that are going to benefit the people who need them the most and at no cost to them. Ensuring that the right drugs and their proper doses make it to the clinics in time is my way of making a difference. There is no better career than one in saving lives and changing lives for the better. The rewards priceless.