Vanessa Kerry & the Global Health Services Partnership: Turning History into Action

It’s been more than 50 years since President Kennedy challenged Americans to engage in public service, asking doctors to spend their time in Ghana and engineers to work in the Foreign Service.  Sarge Shriver gave that challenge legs by creating the Peace Corps, (which celebrated its’ 50^thanniversary in 2011) considered by many to be among the most important avenues of direct service ever inspired. It’s been 33 years since the International Health Act proposed an International Health Services Program and nine years since PEPFAR was announced.  Finally, The Global Health Services Partnership will realize the full scope of vision that will help create the most comprehensive global clinical capacity-building program to date. In short, Vanessa Kerry says, “We’re finally turning history into action. It offers a new opportunity for service and an innovative and overdue model for partnership in development. ” 

We first met Vanessa Bradford Kerry, MD MSc, through Christy’s work with the Global Health Council at Harvard Medical School, where Vanessa is Director of Global Public Policy and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Every Mother Counts was brand new and we were thrilled to make new friends doing exciting work in the field. We’ve stayed in close contact since then providing mutual support when called upon and have been eagerly awaiting the official launch of the Global Health Services Partnership.  

As a doctor, Vanessa has focused on global health for ten years. As the daughter of Senator John Kerry (D-MA), she’s understood the responsibility that comes with privilege for her entire life.  But it’s in her role as a new mother of a five-month old son, that Vanessa says, she “totally gets it.”  “I’ve been committed to developing greater global access to health care for as long as I’ve been interested in medicine.  Growing up in a house of public servants, and having opportunities to travel to areas of deep inequities, I’ve always felt the pull towards this issue.  But after the intense experience of having my own child, my commitment amplified 100-fold.  I respect the need for safe birth and health care access more than ever.  My child will have all the opportunities and protections he’ll ever need. Imagining what it would be like to raise him without any healthcare at all, motivates me even more than I thought possible.”

Vanessa is the founder and CEO of the newly launched Global Health Services Partnership (GHSP), which has teamed up with the Peace Corps and PEPFAR to create a public-private partnership that’s essentially, Peace Corps for doctors and nurses.  By sending qualified healthcare providers to areas of high-need as medical educators, GHSP provides a sustainable way to expand the number of healthcare providers in developing countries where, on average, there are only 18 doctors for every 100,000 patients. In some countries, the ratio is only one doctor for every 100,000.  That would be like having only one doctor in Burbank or five in Washington DC.  

The World Health Organization says there’s a critical need for 2.4 million doctors, nurses and midwives in 57 countries, where the global burden of disease is highest.  But in order to be sustainable, they can’t be outsourced from wealthier countries.  Instead, the key for countries to meet their own health care needs depends on their ability to train their own students to be healthcare providers. That’s where GHSP comes in. When GHSP volunteers travel to developing countries, they’ll work as medical educators to train a country’s healthcare students.  Those students will eventually train other students, who will train even more, exponentially increasing the number of skilled healthcare professionals to meet that country’s needs.  Vanessa calls that a force multiplier. Every Mother Counts calls it the multiplier affect.  By using this model, GHSP will immediately scale up teaching capacity, rapidly increase personnel, strengthen the medical, nursing and health education systems in partnering countries and have a profound impact on access to healthcare where it’s needed most.  Here’s what that looks like:

How would this improve maternal health?  Currently, a large majority of maternal deaths, illnesses and injuries are attributed to a severe shortage of trained birth attendants, midwives, nurses and doctors.  In their absence, mothers deliver alone or attended only by a friend, relative or untrained birth attendant. When emergencies arise there’s no one to intervene, nobody to save their lives.  That’s why, in countries like Uganda, for example, about 100 women die in childbirth every week.  By training healthcare providers in countries with high maternal mortality rates, GHSP gives more women access to the help they need to survive. 

What’s in it for GHSP volunteers?  In line with the Peace Corps’ model, volunteers commit to at least one year of service and in return, they’re eligible for any kind of debt repayment up to $30,000 per year.  In addition, they come home better doctors with a deeper understanding of how to utilize resources and communicate with patients from a wider range of cultures and backgrounds.  In short, once a doctor or nurse experiences the deep need of people around the world, they “get it” too. 

Who can help?  While only qualified doctors and nurses with advanced degrees can volunteer, everyone can help by making donations.  Vanessa says, “Donor support goes a long way to insure that all the pieces that go into making this partnership a success get the right amount of attention and growth.” It also magnifies the overall volunteer impact by bringing people from all segments of the global community together. 

What kind of doctors and nurses do they need? GHSP is specifically looking for physicians with training in one of seven core disciplines: Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Medicine/Pediatrics, General Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Psychiatry or Family Medicine. 

For nurses, potential specialty areas include: general adult care, critical care, trauma, infectious and NCD, chronic care management, pediatrics, mental health, public/community health, midwifery, pre-natal care, family planning, emergency obstetrical care and PMTC HIV, palliative care, and nursing leadership and management.

The first team of 30 GHSP volunteers will travel to three pilot programs in Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda in July 2013, but the program will expand substantially in subsequent years.  If you want to apply as a physician or nurse, get your application in by October 15, 2012.  If you want to make a significant impact on maternal health, support GHSP through your donations.