August 1st marked the 28th anniversary of Health Volunteers Overseas. As part of our celebrations, we’ve launched the HVO Photo Contest, encouraging our volunteers and their companions to submit photos from trips over the years so that we might recognize the amazing sites they’ve seen and work they’ve done.
Our anniversary always provides a unique opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been and how far we’ve come – our global health community is really something.
In the nearly three decades that we have been recruiting highly qualified health care professionals to improve global health, HVO has worked on five continents, in more than 35 different countries. Our projects target innumerable global health challenges and cover over a dozen health care specialties.
With each project developed to address the unique needs of the particular country and institution where it is based, HVO volunteers have served a number of roles over the years as they’ve sought to provide education, training and professional development to the health workforce in resource-scarce countries. HVO volunteers have served as guest faculty members, mentors, and colleagues – offering education, training, guidance, support, input, and collaboration. Along with the knowledge they’ve brought to project sites, HVO volunteers have provided camaraderie, diminishing professional isolation and burn-out that can cost hospitals and clinics around the world essential personnel.
I know the HVO global health community has and continues to impact health care around the world. We know that lives have been saved. We know that children are growing up with a brighter future thanks to the knowledge and support provided by HVO volunteers over the years to clinicians, faculty and students in hospitals and schools around the world.
Of course, as I reflect on the past, I find myself looking to the future…
The last 30 years have seen a major shift in health care needs in developing countries. While malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases remain important contributors to the disease burden found in developing countries, these countries now also face the full array of chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer associated with more developed countries. Injuries from violence and road traffic accidents have also increased dramatically over this time and are expected to be the fifth overall cause of death in the world by 2030. More than 5 million people die every year as a result of injuries, more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. More than 90% of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where the health systems are ill prepared to meet this challenge.
As we look to the future, HVO will work to scale-up our model and expand our global health community. Health care needs in developing countries are changing. Ironically, as countries move up the economic ladder, they acquire a double burden of disease and must handle the impact of both infectious and chronic diseases. With the growing incidence of trauma exploding in countries with a toxic mix of cars, buses, cows and pedestrians all sharing the road, surgical care, recovery and rehabilitation become even more important.
Health care systems are complex and notoriously difficult to manage and change, but by expanding HVO’s highly competent, well-prepared and dedicated volunteer pool and answering more requests for support from overseas health institutions and systems, HVO can increase its impact on the professional development and capacity of health care providers to meet their local health care needs, to argue for the allocation of resources, and to provide the care their patients deserve.
I am so proud of the work of our volunteers over the past 28 years, and I am thrilled at the prospect of expanding our community to transform more lives.