Dear Colleagues and supporters,
“Doctors Day in May” when we ask you to (at least figuratively) spend the day working to enhance healthcare in the developing world is fast approaching. This is achieved by donating the equivalent of a day’s salary, or part thereof , to TTD which via its long time established partners, funds projects to enhance medical workforce in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the past we have worked with one of our partners, UNICEF, to bolster health systems in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and most recently, helped to shore up Covid vaccination programmes in Africa.
I am proud to say that your contributions over the years through TTD have provided in excess of $500,000 to UNICEF (our most long term partner).
I am also excited to report that we are embarking on a new project with UNICEF based in Papua New Guinea.
The programme includes;
- Training qualified health workers on early essential newborn care (EENC), basic emergency obstetric and newborn care and health promotion.
- Training village health volunteers on health promotion especially pertaining to safe perinatal practices .
- Provision of critical public health care equipment and supplies.
Just some salient information on PNG and it’s health landscape;
- Population- about 10 million.
- Doctors per 1000 people is 0.07. This is amongst the lowest in the world! The average among small Pacific Islands is nearly 10 times as many.
- In Australia, the figure is 4.12.
In other words there are about 60 times as many doctors per 1000 people in Australia compared with PNG.
Infant mortality rate is 10 times that in Australia.
It seems to me that this is a real opportunity to be Twice The Doctor.
Regards to all
Rob Baume
On behalf of the Directors of the Twice The Doctor Foundation