Transport and logistics considerations for responding to disease outbreaks

This is a story about India's the unfortunate lapses in providing medical oxygen when covid-19 resurged in 2021.  

It could happen anywhere, especially in places with terrible transport networks and logistics systems.  

Make sure you subscribe! 

Also subscribe to NewsBuka.
Follow all my blogs on one twitter.  
Follow on facebook.
Order Big Girl and Big Boy.

Optimism // Beautiful world

How Bill and Melinda Gates have tried to make Warren Buffett's vision of optimism a reality - and how you can too https://t.co/EvLnEX1i07 pic.twitter.com/zbSbV642Ci

— CNN International (@cnni) February 14, 2017

Only 1% know poverty has halved since 1990. Optimism in pessimistic times. Read Gates Annual Letter – https://t.co/dKc994XAzq via @billgates

— Carlos A. Reck (@yuyay) February 14, 2017

Announcing the 2017 World's 50 Most Innovative Companies—from @Snap to @Glossier #FCMostInnovative https://t.co/FCIXTrYzaI pic.twitter.com/HVQS89WwGs

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) February 13, 2017

Announcing the 2017 World's 50 Most Innovative Companies—from @Amazon to @Chobani #FCMostInnovative https://t.co/Betg3uxDck pic.twitter.com/dvvHhBkFrU

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) February 13, 2017

She's the first woman to travel to every country in the world https://t.co/OfwVnh3Hf3 pic.twitter.com/79uj49TunQ

— CNN (@CNN) February 10, 2017

All these countries have had a woman leader before the U.S.: https://t.co/7bfYfLjDcW pic.twitter.com/KaY1YPmFIN

— CNN International (@cnni) June 10, 2016

Get email updates.
Order Big Girl and Big Boy.

Six Questions with Doctor Ameenah Hassan

Amina Muhammad Hassan earned her MBBS in April 2006 from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.  

Ready, Set, ...

 She subsequently worked at:  
- Uthman Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto - Internship
- King of Kings Specialist Hospital, Asaga, Ohafia, Abia State - 8 months of NYSC
- Kawo General Hospital, Kaduna state - last 3 months of NYSC
and since then, she's been with the 
- Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of King Fahd Women and Children's Hospital, Gusau, Zamfara State. She is currently the Head of Clinical Services in the hospital. 

An old photo: Zamfara is quiet

Some more-recent photos HERE

Alongside this, she serves as 
- a State Trainer in the Malaria Action Programme for States (MAPS) 
- a master trainer mentor for MNCH2 (Maternal, Newborn and Child Health 2)

She is a member, and former Zamfara state treasurer, of the Nigerian Medical Association.
She is married, and enjoys taking walks and admiring nature in her spare time.

Back in Queen's College where we were classmates from January 1991- June 1996, Amina was often class captain and when she became a house captain, as expected her Obong House was swiftly transformed into a winner at inspections and sports. 

SS3Y Class Photo in 1996: Ameenah is second from left, with face obscured by Fatima's head (precursor surgical mask? :) I made sure my face got in :) @3rdLeft

I remember her as a Muslim person of principle.   

Also, I think it was she who started the trend in our class of going regularly to the library to enjoy the reference books on the upper floor, that is, not just when we had homework.  I came to enjoy the habit very much too. 


I badly wanted to ask her a few questions for only my fourth ever Six-Questions feature:
  

-------

1. Tell us a story about the oldest person you've met at work. And the youngest? 

 The oldest patient I've attended to was a 60-year-old woman with uterovaginal prolapse, we managed her successfully.  

The youngest was a neonate born with ambiguous genitalia, we referred [this child] to the teaching hospital in Zaria.

[Ask Google/Wikipedia, like I did :) ]

2. What are the two biggest solvable problems you encounter regularly at work? 

Late-coming especially the HMIS staff,  

and 

Attitude - we generally need to be proactive.

 
3. Three things we should all do for better health? 

Eat healthy, laugh a lot and exercise.

 
4. How did you decide to become a medical doctor? 

I initially wanted to read accounting, like my Dad. 

The turning point was JSCE Book-Keeping [back in 1993, as a JS3 / 9th-grade student.] It got me tied up in knots, lol.   

At that point I decided to save lives instead.  All I had to do was pass JAMB so I got admission in ABU Zaria.

5. What is the meaning of life? 

Life is a gift. Cherish it and make the best use of it, irrespective of the circumstances.  

The Doc with her handsome baby.

6. Does Nigeria need more doctors?

Where I work the ratio is one doctor to 40 [patients] averagely, this can be overwhelming.  

A conducive working environment and more hands will help.  

[Today, it's New Year's Eve] I saw outpatients and now I'm in theatre to perform an elective Cesarean section, and work still continues after the surgery.

Get UpNaira email updates.
Order Big Girl and Big Boy.

Do you really want to live forever?

Five Tales from Crazy California

1

"I have no intention of dying"
- Sumner Redstone.
Billionaire Redstone, now 91, has made no secret of his longevity regime. It begins with a breakfast of goji berries, "Green Machine" smoothies and tomato juice — followed by a fish dinner and a shot of vodka for its "wonderful" antioxidant properties. The mogul also says he exercises 90 minutes a day.

 2

"It's not even a hypothesis; it's just obvious: The human body is a machine.  Like any other machine, it can be subjected to preventative maintenance that will keep it going indefinitely by removing and replacing parts, just the way we do for a car." 

- Aubrey de Grey, head of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence Research Foundation, and author of Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime.

 3

"Our goal is to move to a preventative medicine paradigm versus treating diseases after they occur.  This is the start of the future of human medicine."
- J. Craig Venter, geneticist and owner of Human Longevity Inc., which will sequence 100,000 genomes annually for paying customers.

 4

"There are a lot of people out there saying, 'We can sell you good health if you pay attention to what we do,' which is genome sequencing, but I have yet to see them actually make an impact."   

- Dr. Dennis Slamon, chief of UCLA's hematology-oncology division.

 5

The urban legend that Walt Disney had his body frozen after death is not true, but it is an option today. 
Most recently, the body of famed computer coder Hal Finney was flown to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., shortly after he died Aug. 28 of ALS. 
That night, his fluids were replaced with a proprietary chemical solution called M-22. 
His body then was chilled to -320ºF and placed in an aluminum pod suspended within a 450-liter tank filled with liquid nitrogen.
There, Finney will remain in suspended animation, or biostasis, until he can be revived.
(Full-body cryopreservation costs $200,000, but one can preserve one's brain for a mere $80,000.)  
Exactly how or when that might be achieved is unclear, but according to the Alcor website, the key lies in nanotechnology, by which molecule-sized devices could "recover any preserved person in which the basic brain structures encoding memory and personality remain intact."

Source: How to Live Forever: The (Mad?) Science Hollywood Is Using to "Cure" Death
by Seth Abramovitch for The Hollywood Reporter, 10th September 2014

Get UpNaira email updates weekly