Wilson Chimpansha, trainee Doctor, Zambia
– during training for ophthalmology
We are delighted that MMTA’s Friends of Mufulira charity has resumed bursaries this year to send four final year medical students for their overseas elective. The first two, Niamh Johnson and Dominika Sadczuk, from Edinburgh University, arrived in Mufulira in April 2023 to stay for a month, working at Ronald Ross General Hospital (RRGH).
When they come back it will be our chance to hear what has changed in Mufulira since the last electives visited in 2019 before the pandemic. Since then, in 2021, Hakainde Hichilema became President of Zambia seeking, in his words, to reduce corruption and provide jobs for a growing young population.
However, in Mufulira, times remain hard. The town’s main industry remains the Mopani Copper mine and smelter (MCM) but although copper prices are steady little benefit can be seen in the populace. Glencore, who owned Mopani from the year 2000 to 2019 was frozen out by the previous government of Edgar Lungu. The mine was then taken over by ZCCM-IH (Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines – Investment Holdings) but with a billion dollar debt to be paid to Glencore. Mufulira is now experiencing the worst of both worlds, a mine run by bureaucrats and a debt that will not allow wealth to be shared in this impoverished community.
All this is one of the main reasons FOM has focused on health. In Mufulira the run down hospitals neither benefit from sufficient mine or government support. In these circumstances it is one of the reasons local medical teaching is geared to creating practitioners with all round experience. It is common, for example, for Zambian doctors to carry out the role of GP while at the same time able to perform surgery. The nephew of Godfridah Mwimbe (well known in this parish for her previous advocacy against sulphur pollution) is a case in point. His name is Wilson Chimpansha and he is now completing his final rotational practicum in major departments; psychiatry, and ophthalmology at Ndola Teaching Hospital, ENT at Kitwe Teaching Hospital and gynecology and obstetrics, surgery and pediatrics at RRGH, amongst other subjects. He will write his final exams in November 2023 before graduating.
Godfridah writes to me as follows: “To be honest, Mufulira is not well in a good number of things, namely; health, unemployment, agriculture. The mine issue is far from being resolved. Infrastructure, road network, the economy still very unstable, some politicians are quite undiplomatic/unethical! Furthermore the weather has also had an adverse effect on the town. Water and sanitation is another issue apart from unplanned settlements. Under Lungu there was ‘open corruption’ while under HH there’s ‘hidden corruption’…”
In other areas, FOM recently made a grant of £1050 to support Zambian clinicians to train in Lusaka to gain practical knowledge and experience in assisted ventilation for patients in respiratory failure. These new skills will be cascaded to the rest of the clinical team at RRGH upon their return. We believe that this approach is a very cost-effective way of achieving health improvement for the community we support and will maximise the use obtained from the ventilator FOM provided to RRGH during the pandemic.
For MMTA members and guests reading this at our conference, you can be sure that our small medical charity will continue what it has been doing since 2016, providing targeted support and, with it, creating life-long contacts between the community in Mufulira, our future young UK doctors, and the MMTA.
By Anthony Lipmann
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Donate to Friends of Mufulira:
https://www.peoplesfundraising.com/donation/friends-of-mufulira
Registered charity no: 1176062
