WONCA

Vic Falls

Brian and I are just back from the WONCA Africa conference in Zimbabwe.  WONCA, strangely, is the acronym for the World Association of Family Doctors (or some variation of that).

The conference was held in the lovely town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  It was a bit of a challenge to arrange travel to Vic Falls, from Addis.  The only flights available were charters through Air Zimbabwe.  Air Zimbabwe has had its share of troubles over the last few years. 

lovely plane ride

This is what we read prior to flying: Air Zimbabwe was bankrupt, hadn’t paid any of their fuel bills for ages and was no longer allowed to fly in international airspace. This information did not fill us with confidence as we boarded the plane.  The flight of course turned out to be terrific—12 seater plane, in flight coca-cola, great pilot (though no co-pilot, but perhaps co-pilots are over rated) and we all arrived safe and sound.

The conference was very interesting for us.  There seems to be a lot of momentum for primary care in East and Southern Africa.  It was also reassuring for us to hear of the various challenges that other countries have faced.

Brian and I, (well, mostly Brian) were meant to present on the successful implementation of FM in Ethiopia.  We had to change the presentation to the barriers we have encountered in implementing FM in Ethiopia.  It was actually supposed to be our Ethiopian colleague, Dawit doing the presentation.  He was unfortunately not able to get a visa for Zimbabwe so was unable to attend. 

I find it perplexing, that as Canadians, we can just show up in Zimbabwe and obtain a tourist visa on arrival.  If you are a citizen of an African country, you need to apply for a visa weeks in advance and then may be denied a visa (discouraging).

A good week was had; we met many interesting people and got to know a few East African family medicine colleagues.