By Batou Saidy
This year has been a very successful one for the Public Health cadre, yet, punctuated with oxymorons and nuances here and there. But how do these successes pave the way for a better future, the one that involves the youth folk? Maybe we should discuss that across the table as a family. Well, this is certainly my last article for the year, so as usual; I’d employ my autonomy as a columnist and highlight a few things of Public Health concern in Jollof.
Given the complexity, the future of this cadre is a subject matter that is quite hard to discuss, at least overtly. Yet, with a comprehensive analogy, most people would come to terms with the crux of the public health affairs most Public Health Officers (PHOs) already overstand. So, this analogy will wear its heart on its sleeve to reconcile the fleeting conversations of our darling cadre. But where do we begin? Well, before we do, maybe we should send a message across to our leaders, reminding them of what Omar Touray said: “If leadership is about service, then the highest standard isn’t how far above people you stand, but how well you remain accountable to them.”
Potentials and intellectual capacity. You see, this cadre has a myriad of those. So many well-educated people. It’s a workforce thick with smart people of varied potentials and overpopulated by highly educated people of respected specialisations, here and afar. Ipso facto, the baseline qualification for a PHO to hire on with gov’t or otherwise is the attainment of a diploma, which is very respected and well above the bare minimum in the qualification metrics in the corporate sector of this country, with all due respect. But, truly, is being well-educated enough? Then what?
Ideas and programs. Morro, not only in Jollof, the health world is embracing preventive medicine, and that is the hallmark of this cadre. It has a lot of relatively new things as well: new ideas, programs, units, agencies, and suchlike, en masse; nuancedly depicting an extended family that married within themselves, yet, reeling on ‘faading yaa’ here and there. So, her future is bright. Or so I thought. How?
Well, taking a farmland as an example, if the relatively new crops that should make it productive and sustainable enough for posterity decidedly suffer an identity crisis the very moment they leave the farmland, the only tangible resort could be a trade-off: the catch-22 of the farmland. Does that give the farmland a bright future? Do most PHOs overstand that?
You see, this cadre has a lot of young people in as much as she has the brains. Suffice to say she has beauty with brains; or even body and looks. A full package: from hotness to beauty, of course (pun intended). Add her aforesaid qualities to the beauty and brains, you’d see a very bright future, but on the spin, you’d see a bleak one, too. How?
Disunity. Dishonesty. Corruption. Sycophancy. All these are risk factors for the bleak future of our darling cadre, with a very high prevalence among the young folk, despite all her brimming potentials of a well-educated workforce, sadly. But this is something that most PHOs overtly fret about admitting. Out of that, a handful mistakes accountability for insubordination, sycophancy for obedience, and taking sides for sincerity. And in between, some blindly conform, up to the extent of fighting proxy misunderstandings and disagreements, not even proxy fights! That brazenly. Certainly, if we don’t want to make too fine a point, sycophancy is lowlife. But maybe they are sitting on that very thin line between understanding and misunderstanding, or merely responding to a cathartic release.
However, there are those young PHOs as well, with the testicular fortitude to openly defend truth, indict injustice, and tell off the abhorrent aspects of our public health practice; even if that doesn’t affect them directly or indirectly. Ismaila Gibba. Alasana Kanteh. Yankuba Jarjusey. Yahya Barrow. Sheikh Tijan Cham. Alongside a few that I know (I mean young PHOs). These are gentlemen of gravitas who earned my respect a long time ago. Ditto for Modou Lamin Jammeh. They should take leadership positions in this field. Cent pour cent.
Conversely, the communication materials of the LRR PHOs Association on the cusp of their Kiang Karantaba Convergence last month somewhat precipitated the greatest and longest discussion in the Gambian Public Health fraternity since the Public Health industrial action in 2022, inadvertently. Those discussions have exposed a lot of gaps here and there and created a wide forum for improvement by offering very sound and pragmatic feedback. But how do we generally respond to feedback, individually and institutionally?
Denial. Defense. Deflection. These are often the three main ways we use to respond to feedback that we could use to improve instead. If we don’t deny terrible situations that, “That’s not true”, we’d defend that, “We aren’t aware”, or even just vaguely deflect that, “But other offices do the same.” It’s that bad. Well-meaning professionals take responsibility and accept constructive criticism, and accede to improvements. They don’t cry or see brutal honesty as an attack. They don’t resort to antics or diagnose themselves with victimhood syndrome. And they don’t recruit proxies to jump onto their antics bandwagon, either. No, no.
Largely, it’s safe to say that the young people make up the bulk of this cadre. And they are the future: the cream of the cadre. Yet, if these people don’t unite for the overall betterment of their practice, stand up to ensure that their actions and inactions are guided by justice and honesty; then it’d be normal for any insightful person to worry about her future, at least in that respect. Because no well-meaning person would take any PHO seriously, one whose speech volume is determined by what or who the subject is, their relationship or affiliation with them; instead of what the truth is, simply because they’ve ingratiated themselves with such so-called demigods. To them, defending their sycophantic relationships is more important than admitting the truth openly, just for a few continued professional pampering and corporate babysitting. Don’t laugh! This is an open secret.
Moreover, whenever you think about brain drain, you tend to realise that your optimism for a futuristic Public Health cadre doesn’t match the reality on the ground. A few years ago, Sarja, APEHOG supremo, laid his concerns about it bare. A few more did, too. And unless you’re stranded on a desert island over the past few years, you know that brain drain, for many reasons, is one of the major issues confronting this cadre. In that regard, she cannot afford to lose Sheikh Omar Sillah and a lot more Kotokes of substance, prominent enough or not, for all the good reasons. No, no. But let’s be forthright with one another here: what does she offer to keep them, too? You see, if we (as a cadre) aren’t careful enough, at all levels of course; we could be like: a small family that is already reeling on underprivilege, only to be hit by orphanage; and has no better sanctuary than a toxic step-parentage. That’s sad. Innit?
Moving forward, we should try to come to terms and start doing some things right. It’s never too late. No one can do it alone. We need one another. Yet, in so doing, we don’t need to worship one another. Young ones don’t need to prostrate to certain demigods to open doors, whatever ones for that matter. Only Allah does things. No one else does them. In fact, the people who anyone could worship also worship Allah. And if you think they love you enough, they actually don’t. Why? Because they’d never give you whatever is truly theirs. You can only have a “busung dango” at tables where they pick “kudewolu” for themselves. Again, don’t laugh.
Contextually, “busung dango” is a colloquial Mandinka term for a portion of meat given to those people who helped skin an edible animal, livestock for example, whereas “kudewo” is a respectful and considerate chunk of the same meat given to elders or anyone else, out of due respect. The former is earned whereas the latter is given out of sheer goodwill. So, in this regard, sycophants get the former while the latter is reserved for those that they worship: who, in fact, in this case, don’t necessarily own these animals, but arrest them and apply Food Science 404 on them. Don’t laugh. So, if the so-called system is already frustrating us, we shouldn’t frustrate one another. That shouldn’t even be an option.
Talking about animals, in the avian family, there is a famous bird called “Mansa dibongo” in Mandinka. It has a well-developed beak that makes it practically impossible for predators to eat it with it, hence midwifing a proverb that’d closely translate to: “A bird that you easily devour is not “Mansa dibongo.” Personify this, you’d see a loose equivalent of it in certain people. This bird neither succumbs to predators, nor accedes to bullies. So do some people in every workforce. While drawing the curtains on the animal discourse, it’s sad to see some young people recruiting themselves or being used by their demigods to fight their fellow young people who go all out: stand so firm and tall to defend and protect the work that binds them all. That Uncle Tom attitude.
People should take pride in their work, if it’s clothed in morality, of course. Likewise, they should take pride in their names, too. I do. Named after a well-respected and upright man from eastern Jarra, those who know me well enough know how much I live up to this name since my formative days. Alhagie Batou Snr is a very upright, brave, and honest man who could speak truth even when the whole of Jarra is seated without batting an eyelid. I’ve seen that several. Now 95, he is still strong, prayerful, and grateful to Allah. Certainly, Allah likes the truth, and He is with the truthful. Ipso facto, not necessarily effing and blinding at myself, but the day that I stop being truthful is decidedly the day that I least deserve life. Certainly, all glory be to Allah.
Long live Public Health. Hopefully, next year, PHOs, essentially the young ones overstand how we need to be there for one another: unite, be real, work together to jealously protect the future of our darling cadre without being used or trying to earn brownie points. It shouldn’t be like a family situation where one sidelines their siblings for merely disagreeing with them on certain moral values and standards, only to befriend outsiders just to overstretch what led to those disagreements. But we cannot achieve this if we continue to see vibrant voices as attacks, and not as rooms for improvement. Batuwo leng.
