Address correspondence to:
Mary Jo Geyer, PT, PhD, FCCWS, CLT-LANA, C.Ped
Limbtegrity™ LLC
1611 Merriman Court
Pittsburgh, PA 15203
Phone: 412-496-7100
E-mail: maryjogeyer@mac.com

“See me, Feel me, Touch me, Heal me.”

     (from Tommy, The Who, 1969)

   Those of you who came of age in the 1970s and 80s may remember the rock opera, Tommy, by The Who. I apologize to Pete Townshend for the use of his lyrics, but the metaphor was irresistible. Tommy, a deaf, dumb, and blind boy, experiences a miracle and regains his ability to perceive the world around him, just as my extraordinary experience in India has transformed me. As the leader of the first AAWC-HVO Global Alliance volunteer team, my perspectives on the merits and limitations of the project are offered here to encourage and inform those of you who may be interested in using your much needed skills to volunteer in a similar manner.

Background

   Thanks to the generosity of William F. Benter, I became the first recipient of a grant from the Benter Global Citizenship Project at Chatham University (Pittsburgh, PA), which funded the project. The project provided experiential learning for Chatham students, while simultaneously training healthcare professionals in wound and lymphedema management. What better way to promote students’ awareness of global issues and to foster international citizenship than through active participation in another culture? What better way to sustain our effort than to link our project to the AAWC-HVO Global Alliance?

   India was selected as the site for the project because the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMC) became an approved AAWC-HVO Global Alliance site in 2007. In addition to CMC’s interest in developing a specialized wound service, they were keen to learn multimodal methods to improve their management of lymphatic filariasis (LF). Lymphatic filariasis is a condition caused by mosquito-borne parasites, which commonly results in massively swollen legs and genitals, known as elephantiasis. There are 83 endemic countries, but almost 40% of all known cases are located in India. There are in excess of 120 million people worldwide afflicted with the disease, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has ranked LF as the second leading cause of chronic disability worldwide.¹

   The WHO Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis ([GPELF], www.filariasis.org) has 2 components: 1) stop the spread of infection by interrupting transmission by means of mass drug administration, and 2) alleviate the suffering of affected individuals. The bulk of funding for GPELF to date has been for mass drug administration. Our CMC project was focused on the second component and included training a group of 20 physicians, nurses, and physical therapists at the primary level; 20 community-based health officers at the mid-level, and informal caregivers at the field level. Wound management was largely taught incidental to the lymphedema treatment and focused primarily on hygiene, infection control, and treatment of fungal infections.

See me . . .

   My experience in India increased my awareness of the health worker crisis in developing countries and the threat to global health that has arisen because of this situation. There is an inequitable distribution of health workers throughout the world with severe imbalances both between developed and developing countries, as well as within countries between rural and urban areas. Fifty-seven countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, face a severe shortage.