CHB hosts historic medical convention
The Central Health Board of the Supreme Council organised the first ever Medical Convention on 22-23rd March 1997 in Dar es Salaam. Amongst the lecturers were two doctors from overseas, doctors from Dar es Salaam and Professor Sayyed Q M M Kamoonpuri also of Dar es Salaam. The subject matter was multifarious and deliberations led to a number of useful resolutions which have been aired for subsequent adoption pending the opinions of individual Jamaats.
A medical convention, the first of its kind, was organised by the Central health Board of the KSI Supreme Council in Dar es Salaam on 22 and 23 March, 1997. The event was a tremendous success with over 300 delegates, invitees and observers attending from all over Africa and abroad. Ladies also took an active part in the deliberations.
The objectives of the convention were to bring together medical professionals, community leaders and heads of institutions from varying experiences to a common platform to discuss the medical, moral, ethical and religious aspects of health care of our community and to appraise the current health status of our community and recommend appropriate preventive health educational programmes.
Other objectives were to evaluate and disseminate and where appropriate provide data to bring awareness of the prevalence of serious and infectious diseases affecting our community and to recommend effective programmes to control and prevent them, to encourage and facilitate interactive and innovative panel discussions on matters affecting the organisational structure and development of our health care institutions with a clear goal of achieving excellence meeting the needs of our community in the light of rapidly changing environment and to prepare Resolutions covering the health and organisational issues of importance affecting our community for submission to the Supreme Council for implementation.
The Opening of the Session was held at the Dar es Salaam Imambara amidst a packed attendance.The Session commenced with recitations from the Holy Qur'an followed by a welcome speech by Convenor, Asgher Alidina. Then came the keynote address from Mohamedbhai Pirbhai, Vice-President of the Supreme Council and a message from Asgherbhai Bharwani , President of Dar es Salaam Jamaat following which the Chairman of the session, Anver Rajpar took over and offered the podium to Aunali Khalfan, the Chairman of the Central Health Board (CHB) who gave an informative talk on the subject of ‘The importance of CHB in the present health history of the community in Africa’.The Master of Ceremonies was Dr. Jaffer Dharshi.
It is quite clear that the CHB has made tremendous progress. Besides arranging treatment of patients in Birmingham, it has now established a well- functioning system in Bombay where patients from Africa receive excellent, reliable and cost effective services. It has also managed to screen most jamaats in Tanzania. Furthermore it is due to embark on new projects including services to medical professionals, health education and general medical co-ordination of all Jamaats in Africa.
Dr Walji, Chairman of Medical Advisory Board (MAB) of the World Federation spoke next. In a passionate speech, he described the establishment of MAB, its functions and how it can be of help to our community world- wide in general and to Africa in particular. He presented various statistics on number of patients helped from Africa and the type of diseases they suffer from. By December 1996, the total number of patients from Africa were 2,427, of which 1,821 were from Tanzania, 517 from Kenya and 89 from the rest of Africa. He emphasised that whilst it is indeed a pleasure to look after our patients from Africa, the number is not decreasing inspite of a large number of patients going to India. He suggested that steps should be taken to improve facilities locally so that the need to go overseas diminishes.
Dr Walji also alerted the community that urgent measures need to be taken to prevent the spread of AIDs in our community, to screening and detect inherited diseases like Thalassaemia and to educate the community in important health issues affecting our community. He suggested that serious considerations should be given to pre-marriage counselling and blood tests. These suggestions were received well by the audience, especially ladies judging by the number of questions Dr. Walji was inundated with.
Dr Anil Mehta then spoke and described the facilities which he is able to provide to patients going to Bombay. The following day, Dr Indira Asser, a lady gynaecologist practising in Dar es Salaam discussed the common problems of our ladies. She was complementary towards the community on its concerns of ladies’ health in general but was disturbed to notice creeping trends of ‘liberty’.
Dr Karim Manji then gave a powerful and startling speech on the subject of ‘Social and religious dilemma surrounding medical practice’. He talked at length on the dilemmas he and doctors like him face when practicing in Dar es Salaam and alerted the community of various very difficult, potentially life threatening problems facing our community. He talked about deteriorating moral standards he encounters when talking to his patients ot to students in schools. He appealed to community leaders to pay particular attention to the needs of our youths, to discourage immoral behaviour and to introduce programmes which would keep our youths from debasing.
Prof. Kamanpoori gave an illuminating speech on religious obligations. He said medical professionals at the global level are beginning to realise that there is a desperate need of co-ordination between medical and religious personnel because many moral dilemmas have emerged from medical practices. He said many modern medical institutions have separate departments of bio-ethical studies where scholars research the religious aspects of medical issues such as the use of reproductive technologies, artificial insemination, abortion, surrogate motherhood, family planning and child spacing, use of contraceptives, decisions about mercy killing, physician assisted suicides, genetic engineering i.e. changing the genetic character of living species and the AIDs epidemic.
He said Islam does not approve the definition of health offered by the World Health Organisation (WHO) because the Organisation defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well being but ignores the spiritual component of human existence. he said the Islamic definition of health is that all our actions and thoughts have either positive or negative effects on our health depending on the way we live, eat, act and react. He said these diseases disassociate from unhealthy thinking, unlawful attitudes and unclean environments.
There then followed a workshop on various medical and allied issues affecting our community. Resolutions were then formulated with the primary intention of promoting health awareness in our community and improving health care infrastructures.
A reception was held at the Kuchi Hall where the Chairman of the Africa Federation, Mohamed Dhirani bode farewell to the participants. He congratulated the CHB for hosting a momentous convention and suggested that future conventions should involve more Jamaats from out of Dar es salaam. He also analysed some of the proposed resolutions and cautioned that some should best be left for the people to implement rather than imposing them to do so. Thereafter presentations were made to various participants.
These resolutions along with seven further recommendations were presented at the 55th Supreme Council Session in Kampala where it was proposed that the resolutions be circulated to all Jamaats in Africa in order to give sufficient time to the Jamaats to discusss them to facilitate adoption.
The seven further recommendations essentially covered:
1. Inclusion of health education as an extra-curricular activity in all our schools;
2. Provision of sports facilities like playing grounds and indoor facilities for physical fitness exercises;
3. Organising of regular health education programmes by way of seminars, lectures, essay and quiz ciompetitions and similar programmes;
4. Emphasis on Preventive Health car at Jamaat level particularly for common ailments like high blood pressure, heart diseases, diabetes, HIV and AIDs, Cancer and hazards from smoking;
5. Organising of two year cycle Medical screening Programmes for all members;
6. Appointment of CHB representative where one has not been appointed;
7. Formation of a ladies Sub-Committee to stimulate Healthcare activities. .
In the Kampala meeting it was agreed that the proposed resolutions would currently serve as recommendations for Jamaats to implement and the CHB has asked Jamaats to provide it with a feedback on progress of implementation or obstacles thereto.