Senator Frist's new USAID video on family planning—the healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy—is a great, concise explanation of the problems centered around maternal mortality and what we can do to help, because we know it works. Take 1 minute and 52 seconds to watch it. It'll be worth your time.
Notes from the Road: Retrospective on Rwanda
Jun 25 2014
Sen. Bill Frist
I’ve been home from Rwanda and Kenya only a few days and I’m already on another flight, heading back to Aspen, this time for the Aspen Ideas Festival Spotlight: Health, co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.It’s on flights that I have time to reflect on a few takeaways, drawn from the myriad impressions and experiences I gathered in Rwanda. I tell everyone that journeys to Africa are life-changing and indeed this one was for me, and hopefully those who joined me.
Notes from the Road: Mountain Gorillas
Jun 20 2014
Sen. Bill Frist
*I’m in Rwanda this week representing Hope Through Healing Hands with Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health Rwanda, and Harvard Medical School. These dispatches from the road are my personal journal–recording what I’ve seen and learned on this trip. See my pre-trip thoughts, and blogs from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.Today we went to see some of Rwanda’s natural treasures: mountain gorillas.
Sen. Bill Frist
*I’m in Rwanda this week representing Hope Through Healing Hands with Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health Rwanda, and Harvard Medical School. These dispatches from the road are my personal journal–recording what I’ve seen and learned on this trip. See my pre-trip thoughts, Monday’s blog, and Tuesday’s notes.This morning we met with patients and physicians at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali (CHUK), the urban hospital equivalent. For the past few days we have explored Paul Farmer’s vision of taking health care to the people in rural areas, so often neglected around the world. Today we looked at health care in the city.
Notes from the Road: Cancer Care in Rural Africa
Jun 18 2014
Senator Bill Frist
*I’m in Rwanda this week representing Hope Through Healing Hands with Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health Rwanda, and Harvard Medical School. These dispatches from the road are my personal journal–recording what I’ve seen and learned on this trip. See my pre-trip thoughts, and Monday’s blog.Who says you can’t treat patients suffering from cancer in the poorest, most rural parts of the world?
I’m writing on my iPhone on a bumpy dirt road that I am told will be paved next year. It winds for two hours through gorgeous green mountains sculpted with terraced plots of land and scattered homes stepped up and down the hillside.
Sen. Bill Frist
Why are we in Rwanda? What makes it a unique place to learn about health policy, and health care delivery? What will we learn that can make us smarter as we address health issues back at home?I thought through these questions on the flight to Rwanda, and I had plenty of time. It’s been a long series of flights—Aspen to Denver to Chicago to New York to Amsterdam to Kigali. But the real journey began today as we saw our first health facilities.
Today (Monday), the delegation piled into a Land Rover after breakfast for the 2.5 hour drive to our first stop: the Partners in Health (PIH) headquarters at Rwinkwavu. We toured the Rwinkwavu District Hospital & Health Center, which was funded in part by the Rwandan government, PIH, and Bill & Melinda Gates.
Off to Rwanda: Considering Child Nutrition
Jun 14 2014
Sen. William H. Frist, MD
I was in Aspen earlier this week working on some of the challenges facing healthcare and the health industry in the US, but it’s time to switch gears.Sunday, I leave for Rwanda to lead a one week group trip with my friend Dr. Paul Farmer to see some of the work being done byPartners in Health (PIH) in the country. I haven’t been in countrysince 2008, and I’m anxious to see the progress PIH and other groups are making in health.
Malawi's Safe Motherhood Initiative
Jun 11 2014
Kate Etue, Director of Communications
Motherhood is a dangerous journey to take in most of the world. Nearly 300,000 women die each year from complications due to pregnancy, and 99 percent of those women are in the developing world. In Malawi, an estimated 510 out of 100,000 women will die giving birth. But Chief Kwataine, a former English teacher, has become well-known in the country for his work developing safe motherhood activities for nearly the last twenty years.
Watch this short, two-minute video to learn more about how women's (and children's) lives are being saved in Malawi. It's well worth your time.
Songs of Family Planning in Malawi
Jun 04 2014
Rev. N. Neelley Hicks
“If you don’t practice family planning, you will have a child on your back, in your belly, on your shoulders and in a baby basket on your head.” Malawi nurse Mercy Chikhosi Nyirongo describing the song and dance from a women’s health meeting in Madisi, Malawi 2013.Behavior change communications take many forms throughout a lifetime . . . from the parent who scolds a child for doing something harmful, to government warning labels about health hazards. Somewhere in between are the messages from this video that rise up from women simply wanting to build healthy families by practicing family planning. With one in 39 women on the continent of Africa dying from pregnancy complications, it is easy to understand this group putting family planning at the top of their health priorities.
FGHL Blog: Courtney Massaro - How to Multi-task
Jun 02 2014
First off, an update on the two abandoned babies: they were not there when I went to work after my three days off. I was told that the girl (who was very cute and term) had been adopted, while the boy (who was a premi, but seemed very healthy—though of course small—to me) had died.