Sundaymail Editor
Dr David Sanders reached out to a wide range of people in his continued struggle for health for all people in Zimbabwe, including village health workers, community leaders, families, newborn babies, infants and their siblings, various health workers in training (nurses, nutritionists, doctors) from undergraduate level to postgraduate specialisation and different levels of health service delivery from the community, district, provincial to national hospital and health services.
David Sanders was born in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia and later Rhodesia) in 1945.
He went to an all-white primary and secondary schools, but became conscious of the racial inequalities prevailing in the country at an early age in high school.
He went to the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (later to become University of Rhodesia) – now University of Zimbabwe – from where he qualified in medicine in the late 1960’s.
At university, he became involved in political activism, protesting against the racially driven political injustices prevailing in the country at the time.
He was arrested several times for participating in political demonstrations by Rhodesian authorities.
Following his medical internship, David moved to the UK to escape being drafted into the Rhodesian army that was now escalating its armed response to the then nascent liberation war.
In the UK, David specialised in paediatrics and public health during the period 1971 to 1980.
He worked at St Thomas Hospital in London and undertook a MSc in Community Health in Developing Countries at LSHTM.
He was a founder member of the Medical Association against Private Practice and also of the Politics of Health Group.
He was active in the social class solidarity and equity in health movement there.
At Independence, David returned to Zimbabwe as head of the Oxfam Medical programme, for which he recruited doctors and nurses to place in key mission and Government hospitals in rural areas to revitalise the rural health services and training schools.
The programme staffed both Government and mission hospitals in all provinces in the country.
The Oxfam doctors and nurses supported the Community Health Worker programme (then Village Health Worker, VHW, which was to become one of the pillars upon which the new Zimbabwe National Health System that was being established.
He had great interest in child nutrition.
Through research, he showed that a child at weaning would need to consume a kilogramme daily of ‘sadza’ – the staple food in Zimbabwe – to get all the energy the child needed.
He argued for introduction of a diverse diet based on culturally acceptable and available foods to address the major problem of child malnutrition.
This was documented in his publication on weaning practices in Zimbabwe titled ‘His name is Tomorrow’.
His ideas contributed to the development and adoption of the new Food and Nutrition Policy, including the very successful Child Supplementary Feeding Programme.
He joined the Medical School, initially in the Department of Paediatrics, and then moved to the Department of Community Medicine following his passion for the involvement of communities in health care.
He was instrumental in supporting the revision of the Medical School Curriculum and setting up the rural attachment programme for medical students to orient undergraduate and postgraduate student to Primary Health Care (PHC).
David’s passion and professional commitment was the Struggle for Health for All and Equity in Health, Rural Health, Child Health and Nutrition.
He worked with some of the early pioneers, including Dr Herbert Ushewokunze, Dr Simon Mazorodze, Dr Daniel Makuto, Dr Office Chidede and Dr Vengesayi Jaravaza in shaping Zimbabwe’s post-independence health delivery system.
He made significant contributions in nutrition, child health and primary health care in Zimbabwe between 1980 to1985.
He contributed to strategic planning and strategy development of a number of PHC components, including EPI, Diarrhoeal disease control (for which his publication ‘Questioning the Solution’ still underpins Zimbabwe’s Child Health Programme), and Acute Respiratory Infections.
He supported district health services by visiting district hospitals and district health teams as far afield as Karoi District Hospital in the north to Chipinge District Hospital in the east on a regular basis.
He would do hospital rounds strengthening the pediatric knowledge and skills of district health workers.
His guidance was sought on district structures/services under the first phase of the Family Health Project.
He was very supportive of district planning and worked with the DFID team at MoH to develop the district and provincial planning modules/tools for new Provincial Health Teams.
David left for South Africa in 1992.
He took his Zimbabwe expertise and experience and supported the development of teaching research, and service in child health, PHC and public health to Cape province, for which he has been recognised by people, professional and government of republic of South Africa.
The school of Public Health at the University of Western Cape continued to grow and be recognised regionally and internationally.
He engaged with service, knowledge and science to promote progressive change in health and was a founder of the International People’s Health Movement that brings together diverse civil society and professional communities for health equity.
Recently he has been advocating to put primary health care, public health and social solidarity soul and spirit back into the economics-driven Universal Health Coverage Agenda as part of the People Health Moment.
David will be sadly missed.
However, his legacy continues in the many people he inspired, provoked and informed who are carrying on the struggle for equity in health.
This is a tribute to Dr David Sanders prepared by the Health Advisory Network (HAN) on behalf of the many people whose lives he touched in a variety of ways
Online Reporter