A pair of local doctors are after what seems a small challenge here on the Peninsula — $5,700.

In Uganda, that will send a medical professional to school for a year.

They came upon the challenge after spending months working and living in a resource-poor African country, husband and wife team of Dr. Ambrose Marsh and Dr. Leah Norgrove will reveal their experiences building palliative care in Tanzania with their presentation Reflections and Connections.

“We decided quite a long time ago, we were interested in being part of work in Africa in response to the HIV epidemic,” Norgrove said. Utilizing the internet, they were able to go independently, creating connections rather than hooking up with an existing organizational group, to create their family’s African adventure.

“We wanted to be sure we were working in a collaborative way with health care workers there … in their context,” Norgrove said. They found some work had begun at Bombo Hospital in Tanga, Tanzania; work in palliative care that meshed nicely with their expertise. Norgrove has a family practice in Saanich and is the head of the Palliative Care Unit at Saanich Peninsula Hospital. Marsh, with a family practice in Sidney, is the Chief of Staff at SPH.

So while their sons, aged 10 and 14, biked to, and attended, a local school in Muheza, the doctors spent six months working in two hospitals. Much like living on the Peninsula, they worked at one hospital close to where they lived, plus commuted to Bombo Hospital.

“Antiretroviral treatment has revolutionized HIV/AIDS here … but it was very late to arrive in this part of the world,” Norgrove said. About 60 per cent of the patient population is dealing with HIV and the team there only started working with the drugs in 2006, she explained. “Sadly we’re still seeing a lot of deaths related to HIV/AIDS.

“The way people die of HIV is often AIDS related cancer,” Norgrove said, adding that about 70 per cent of patients required morphine.

While they were there, Bombo got the okay to use morphine, something taken for granted in end-of-life care in Canada.

“We know now they are getting a regular source of morphine,” Marsh said. It was all part of an education process they’d like to see continue; building Bombo as the palliative care capital of Tanzania. So for $5,700 per year, they could send someone to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda to get a diploma in palliative care.

“It’s nothing anybody can afford to do (there),” Marsh said.

“To us it’s really appropriate that they be educated locally,” Norgrove said. “They need education in African cultural context of death and dying.”

Reflections and Connections will be an evening of photographs and stories about their travels to Tanzania and explain ways locals here can help with the Bombo Palliative Care Project. Doctors Marsh and Norgrove will share their experiences during a no-charge event Monday, November 2, starting at 7 p.m. in the Bodine Family Hall at the Mary Winspear Centre.

reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com