Michael
Basically, I made the decision to study medicine based on this story: I was 15 when I saw my father struggling for his health. He was always going to the hospital. When he came back home, he was always complaining that our country has no doctors who could help him. At that time, I was in primary school and I couldn’t grasp quickly why my father was complaining.

One day, he fell so ill that he couldn’t say a word. He was taken to a nearby government hospital. I went to the hospital to see him and he was struggling to speak. What I heard from the hospital report was that my father is very ill with liver disease. He was then referred to a missionary hospital where “flying doctors” from nonprofits often visit. He stayed in that hospital for another one week without the care of a specialist doctor. The same problem was facing at the government hospital was also present at the hospital that my father was referred to. There were no doctors.

My father died and that was in 1992. When I joined secondary school I started to realize why my father died. Our country was lacking enough doctors and there was a need for more doctors. I remembered how my father was struggling for his health, visiting the hospital every time but there were no specialist doctors who could diagnose his problems early enough. I then built an interest in science subjects, particularly Biology.

When I heard about Weill-Bugando University and the support from the Touch Foundation, I said I should now go and study medicine to be a doctor so that I could fulfill my dream of stopping Tanzanians from dying. We really feel the support we are getting from the Touch Foundation. Ordinary Tanzanian students cannot afford to pay the private university’s tuition fee. I believe the problem of too few doctors is going to be made history in our country. Students of Weill-Bugando University really need support from the Touch Foundation so that they can continue with their studies.

The problem that faced my father is also facing many other Tanzanians who cannot afford to meet specialist doctors. My greatest desire, therefore, is to complete my studies and become a fully qualified Cardiologist to help many Tanzanians dying of heart problems. In Tanzania, there are a lot of heart problem cases that are not treated here in Tanzania. Patients are advised to go to India. These expenses cannot be covered by an ordinary Tanzanian, and so many of them die in hospitals where there are either no specialist doctors or there are too few of them. This is my story.

Jairos
I am a Tanzanian born to a poor family in a western part of Tanzania, Kigoma region, where everything signifying poor development is vividly seen; such as muddy seasonal roads, poor health facilities and absence of electricity.

Upon completion of my advanced secondary education I was enrolled at Weill Bugando University as a medical student. I have reached this point despite many difficulties. I recently sat down to figure out the education system in Tanzania, especially with regard to health worker training and realized that Brain Drain cannot be stopped unless the system is changed. I write this to let the know how the Tanzanian society is stratified (classified) and, hence, favors Brain Drain.

As I see it, there are three strata when it comes to the possession of wealth in this country, Tanzania.
The first stratum covers those with high ranks in government leadership such as the ministers, members of parliaments and various managers and general secretaries of public and private offices. International businessmen are included in this class. Regarding health care, when they become sick the take a flight to developed countries such as the USA and UK for treatment. Also their sons and daughters do not study in Tanzanian schools or universities, so when they graduate, they are not willing to work in poor working conditions as I described above, because they do not know the problems facing Tanzania and are not used to this environment. They opt to work in wealthier countries that agree with their class and standard of living.

The second stratum comprises those who are private and government employees, and live in the cities and towns. Since they earn a monthly salary, they are able to take their sons and daughters to mostly privately-owned secondary schools with all the teaching facilities and plenty of well-qualified teachers and expensive school fees. These pupils are the ones to score best. The Tanzanian government enrolls students in universities and gives them loans to meet university costs based on the grades they receive. So this group, who is raised in towns and cities like their parents had been, are the ones to get university level education. When graduated they want to work in towns but there are no vacancies and telling to go work in remote villages and poor towns where real problems exist is like telling them to go to hell, so they opt to move to well developed countries to find work.

The third class comprises the laborers, nomadic persons and local farmers (hand and hoe farmers) who are living under less than one US dollar and send their sons and daughters to local secondary schools, nick-named “Saint Kayumba”. These secondary schools are built by politicians in order to win votes from this class of uneducated people, so these schools are called “political secondary schools” and are, in actuality, only buildings that do not fulfill the purpose of a school. You find two teachers with thousands of pupils, no teaching materials and poor working conditions so that education is very poor. These pupils end up doing poorly in school so the idea of becoming a university student will remain an unfulfilled dream. And these people are the ones who know the situations of ordinary Tanzanians especially when it comes to the health sector because they and their relatives are facing these problems. Sadly, they do not have a say with the government or any other vehicles to enable them to get the know how to save themselves and their people.

Weill Bugando University realized that too many students in the third class I described were not given any opportunities because they have low grades due to the poor education system in their home secondary schools. This university, along with the Catholic Church and Governing Board, sat down and decided to target these students especially.  Funnily enough, amongst Tanzanians and according to the Tanzanian Commission of Universities (TCU), Weill Bugando University has first rank academic performance compared to other public and private medical universities. I am sure graduates including myself are going to help and heal Tanzanians because we know the inner core of Tanzania’s health problems, and the sufferers in poor towns and villages to which we belong.

Whoever helps this third class of Tanzanian people not only will be healing the whole Tanzanian population but, also, will be helping Tanzania to minimize if not to eliminate the Brain Drain problem. Thanks to Touch Foundation for linking us to heart-felt people around the world to make sure that their support reaches us quickly and unchanged.

I belong to the villages so after my graduation I MUST return to save and heal my people. I am ready to cooperate with anybody who is assisting Tanzania in the health sector to save the majority of Tanzania’s population.

“I decided to become a doctor when I was 10 years old, knowing that the chance to become one was zero because of financial problems. What hurt me most was when I watched close family members die because of lack of access to treatment. You might not understand, but the truth is there was no doctor or hospital facility to assist them.."

Born in a poor family with no hopes, I grew up in one of the local villages in the country, which was faced with natural disasters. Life would seen to be normal even though people were dying of diseases that can be cured, but because of lack of doctors and personnel, dying was a daily song.

When I was 9 years old there was an outbreak of cholera, an epidemic that is due to contamination of fecal matter and people in my village died from this. Humanity was in no man’s mind because of lack of personnel -- i.e., doctors or nurses who could identify the disaster and save lives.

I decided to become a doctor when I was 10 years old, knowing that the chance to become one was zero because of financial problems. What hurt me most was when I watched close family members die because of lack of access to treatment. You might not understand, but the truth is there was no doctor or hospital facility to assist them.

My neighbor died while delivering on the roadside next to our house while I was watching her without help. People doing traditional circumcision, too, both girls and boys without any knowledge on what they were doing would bleed to death. I remember seeing my moth put cow dung as treatment after locally cutting an umbilical cord from a baby! And you can imagine what most of the outcomes were. But neither you nor I can blame them!

After performing well in my advanced secondary school, I was like the hero in my village community, but remember I knew nothing about health except the concepts I had learnt in biology and chemistry. I was supposed to join university to do medicine (MD), but it was absolutely impossible because money was needed to pay fees, accommodation and food. I was really hurt, I remember spending around six months in deep stress trying to look for sources of fees, but it was all in vain.

I got a person in the city who told me he would only help me study clinical medicine (diploma in medicine) in order to help people in my village which I did study for 3 years in one of the colleges. After that, I became a clinical officer and started helping people greatly in my village and even in the next seven villages because I was the only clinical officer (not doctor) for more than 5,000 people.

I was moved to a mission hospital built by the Netherlands government in coordination with the Catholic Church where I worked for quite some time.
But the problem is there were so many diseases that I didn’t know just because I wasn’t a fully qualified doctor.

After I heard of the Touch Foundation in Weill Bugando University College of Health Sciences, I applied and really prayed for God to help me to be chosen.

To me, it was a miracle. It was the first time in my life to see a miracle. I was admitted to Weill Bugando University and up to now I am through my first year. To my village and local mission hospital, it’s a celebration and during this holiday vacation I am going back to continue treating them.

I wish that you all could come and see what you have done to us. We are now an asset to our communities and even to the whole country.

This is just a summary of my story, it’s too long, and I have photos that will make you know the complete story.
Presently, because of your contribution I am studying comfortably and I see a future working back in my home village and improving Tanzania.