Seed Country Representative in Tanzania
Getting to know you — Dr. Deogratias Ngoma, Seed Country Representative in Tanzania
When
Deogratias Ngoma joined the Seed team as our first Country
Representative in Tanzania, it marked another step along a path he has
been pursuing since childhood — working to overcome the shortage of
health professionals in his country.
Growing up in a family of eight children in rural Tanzania, Dr. Ngoma
(known as “Deo” to friends and colleagues) saw firsthand how the
shortage of nurses and doctors impaired access and quality of care for
patients. And he had decided that he wanted to be part of the solution.
When he was still in high school, Deo recalls, “I made up my mind I
wanted to be a doctor, and I started pursuing that dream.” By the time
he joined Seed in the summer of 2015, he had not only fulfilled that
childhood dream of becoming a doctor. He had leveraged his skills,
knowledge, and commitment to have an even bigger impact, by combining
clinical care with teaching and taking a leadership role in programs to
combat some of Africa’s biggest health challenges, including HIV/AIDS.
“Towards the end of my medical school,” Deo says, “I started seeing that
doctors can do more than just see patients.” He was inspired to use “my
natural ability of teaching” to help educate the next generation of
health care providers. “My desire was to teach, but at the same time to
provide some clinical care.” He fulfilled that dream as well, delivering
both classroom instruction and bedside teaching in the wards to
Assistant Medical Officer (AMO) students and interns at Bugando Medical
Center in northern Tanzania.
But Deo’s desire to have a larger impact continued to grow. As a way to
improve care far beyond the number of patients he could see in a week,
he says, “I started thinking about shifting from just doing clinical
work and training into global health or public health.” True to form, he
moved quickly from thinking to doing.
When PEPFAR came to Tanzania, Deo was among the first Tanzanian doctors
trained in HIV treatment, and he went on to lead HIV programs first in
Tanzania and then in Malawi. Then, after obtaining a Master’s in Public
Health degree in Belgium, he returned to Tanzania, where he helped
establish and lead a program to control neglected tropical diseases like
trachoma, onchocerciasis (“river blindness”), schistosomiasis
(“bilharzia”), and intestinal parasites.
That is what Deo was doing when he first heard about Seed – and Seed
first heard about him. “When I learned about the vision and what Seed
does, I was excited about it,” Deo says. “It was just in line with what
is really in my heart, like building capacity, human resources and
investing in people. Because that is my passion. I want to invest in
people’s lives for the betterment of humanity.”
He sees his position as Seed’s Country Representative in Tanzania as an opportunity to do just that.
By supporting and participating in Tanzania’s capacity-building
efforts,” Vandervort said, “we can empower communities, individuals, and
the health system to find creative local solutions to this enormous
health problem. Together we can prevent cervical cancer.” http://goo.gl/UvjCeb
#GHSP Nurse Educator Elisa Vandervort works to reduce #CervicalCancer cases and deaths in Tanzania.
#WorldCancerDay #WeCanICan
From the swearing in of the Tanzania #GHSP Volunteers! Congratulations to the Volunteers and we can't wait to see what they accomplish this year!
The entire Seed Global Health is in Boston this week for our annual retreat! In 2015, there were only 12 of us. Today, there are 25!
Toa Maoni Hapa Chini
