October 7, 2014 · 7:31 am

My guide on how not to prepare and run a half marathon

In pain after my latest 21km of badly prepared for running

In pain after my latest 21km of badly prepared for running

‘A specialist in failure’ is how would so far sum up my running career. Three half marathons spread over 5 years and each one has, in its own way been a gigantic disaster.

Firstly my running history…

At the 2009 Brussel’s half marathon I undertook some serious training and at the nimble age of 23 I thought I might have a good chance of running it in a half decent time. I have since learnt that pints of gin and tonics the night before are not the best preparation for a 21km run.

Despite the hangover I stumbled round the course in 2:10.

Of course, the 2009 Brussel’s half marathon was meant as a warm up 5 weeks before the Stroud half marathon in the UK. Sadly, after literally stumbling over the finish line in Brussels and then starting a new job, my training schedule essentially ceased to exist.  I stopped running.

Again, I have since learnt that doing no exercise 5 weeks before a 21km is not such a good idea. However, hangover free and with a good night’s sleep behind me I managed to cut 10 minutes off my time and sneaked in just under 2 hours (notably 7 minutes slower that my to be father in law who is in his 50s and was running his first half marathon at the time).

On this latter occasion though I was running to raise some money for CLIC Sargent – an organisation that provides care for young people with cancer. So the money raised for a good cause provided a nice silver lining in Stroud.

For the last 5 years though I have dwelled slightly on these two relative failure of runs and always thought that I could, if I avoided being drunk and kept to a training schedule, manage to run a half marathon in a way that I was proud.

And so, 5 weeks ago I decided to sign up for the ‘Run for Fun’ race between Entebbe and Kampala here in Uganda.

I haven’t really run (let alone for fun) since 2009 and so the observant amongst you might have spotted a flaw already – 5 weeks really is not long enough to prepare for a half marathon.

However what I lacked in time, fitness and basic training I made up for in optimism. I not only signed up but also decided to start fundraising for the ‘The African Palliative Care Association’ (see ‘Why I am running for APCA’).

The problem with fundraising for a great cause is that it means you have to go public – you have to share your fundraising page on facebook, twitter and your blog etc. In other words, in my mind at least, there was no backing out.

2 weeks into my inadequate 5 week training I hit a rather painful stumbling block. Once again alcohol was at the root of the problem. Rather drunkenly on a Friday night I fell off the top of a moving Land Rover (spare me the ‘it could have been a lot worse’ comments, I quite realize this).

Luckily I did nothing more than land heavily on my bum – although it could have indeed been a lot worse.

This little alcohol induced stumble though did cause a lot of swelling all round my hip which took about 2 weeks to go down and left all of my muscles feeling rather tight.

For the last week before the date of the half marathon then I did not (could not) run. All I could do was a lot of stretching.

By the time the run came about my leg was feeling ‘OK’ with the exception of my groin that was still feeling tight on my right side.

In retrospect I had my doubts but spurred on my fiancé who was also running and who had also missed weeks of training due to a throat infection I thought I would ‘give it a go’ on the basis I could always stop if it started to really hurt.

16.5km and 1:45 into the race I was a feeling a bit tired but generally OK before sharp pains started shooting all down my left leg. This resulted in me limping the last 5km over a 45 min period brining me over the finish line at around 2:29.

To say that it was hurting at the end is an understatement (see above photographic evidence of me just over the finish line). This was, by far, the most pain I have been in after a half marathon! I guess not too surprisingly.

Despite this third failure our fundraising efforts once again provide the silver lining. 22 people donated a total of £332.69 to the African Palliative Care Association (You can still donate to this exceptionally good cause by clicking here).

So thank you to each and every one of you who donated!

And there it is, my running career, how I am slowly becoming a ‘specialist in failure’ and a few hints and tips on how not to prepare for an run a half marathon!

The only question remaining is…have I got one more in me? Will I manage to run a half marathon, sober, fit and well prepared?

Maybe.

 

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September 10, 2014 · 1:35 pm

Why I will be running for the African Palliative Care Association

APCA_logo final_NEW STRAPIt is important to state from the start, I don’t like running and nor am I any good at it. You would be right then to comment that it seems just a smidgen odd to decide to run 21 kilometres, out of my own free will, however good a cause it is for.

Well let me assure you that it is for an exceptionally good cause. I am fundraising for the African Palliative Care Association (APCA). APCA has been my employer now for the last 18 months. I am not too proud to say though that when I started working for them I knew little about palliative care – let alone palliative care in Africa.

I guess I was a little naive but I never expected the raw reality that I was met with on day one of my job. Literally millions of people suffering the most debilitating of pain because they don’t even have access to basic elements of palliative care such as access to pain medication.

I started to grasp the magnitude of what this actually meant when I went with staff from Hospice Africa Uganda on home visits. I met patients and their family who benefited from having access to oral morphine and who had grappled back a sense of normality in their life.

I remember meeting Bruno on the outskirts of Kampala. I remember how he had said to me that “You cannot be happy to see your dad suffering”. But most of all, I remember how deeply sincere he was when he thanked the hospice staff for coming, for caring and for bringing his monthly does or oral morphine.

This realisation though of how important palliative care services are only truly sunk in when I met someone who, like most Ugandans, did not have access to this service.

That person asked me not to publish her name and I can understand why. She spent 6 months nursing her mother who died of cancer as the rest of the family refused to let her seek medical help because of the financial implications. She watched her mother everyday lie in bed unable to move because of the pain she was in. With tears in her eyes she said to me one of the most powerful sentences that I have ever heard: “When I die, I don’t want to go like that.”

This is what APCA campaigns for. To ensure that no-one in Africa dies without access to palliative care.

Over the last 18 months of working for APCA I have almost every day had a realisation of some sort. Sometimes it is still about how dire the situation is in many parts of Africa. Other times it is about these faceless numbers impact on people lives. But increasingly these realisations come through meeting the varied and wonderful volunteers and staff who working to change all this.

Because of a small band of committed people there are now policies, projects and pain killers popping up all over Africa. The staff and volunteers I have met have at times humbled me but more often than not, they have inspired me.

In South Africa the national association is supporting the training of traditional healers in palliative care. In Uganda they have been training journalists and editors. In Zambia they are engaging the HIV AIDS community. All people who used to see themselves as separate to palliative care all now working to ensure everyone has access to these services.

When the palliative care community reaches out – others cannot help but to respond seeking out what they can do, how they can contribute to helping to end this perfectly preventable humanitarian disaster of untreated pain.

It is a natural response that I too felt.

But what can I, as a non-medical professional, contribute? And that’s when it struck me that even if I was already over stretched professionally, I could always do something that anyone of us could do…run a half marathon to raise money and awareness for APCA’s work.

And so, not only do I want you, if you can afford to, donate to APCA through my ‘Just Giving’ page. I would also love you to help me raise awareness of palliative care in Africa. Can you share this article on facebook, visit APCA’s website, or share this video?

Together I know we can do this – there are already hundreds of talented wonderful people out there doing the most amazing work. It might not be obvious how you can help but believe me, just by reading this article you have taken your first step.

There is a long-way to go and my half-marathon is really just the first few steps but together we can make a real difference.

You don’t have to believe me, just go and listen to patients both with and without access to palliative care and you will soon see the difference it can make.

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August 28, 2014 · 9:47 am

Book review: ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ by Rachel Joyce

This is a copy of a book review I wrote for the UK edition of ehospice news.

Harold Fry
If ever a fictional book has illustrated the importance of ‘spiritual care’ as an integral part of palliative care, it is Rachel Joyce’s debut novel, ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’.

Joyce’s heart-warming novel charts the unlikely story of Harold Fry. Harold is a retired Englishman who embarks on 600 mile walk from Devon to Berwick to visit an old friend who is dying of cancer. The walk, or pilgrimage, increasingly becomes interlinked with Harold’s own grief and spiritual pain as he becomes convinced that by undertaking such a walk he can not only keep his old friend alive, but also repent for the mistakes he has made in years gone by.

Although Harold’s friend Queenie is in a hospice with terminal cancer, the reader only gets brief glances at the physical, spiritual and social pain that she is experiencing. Joyce alludes to a lack of family or friends but this, it feels, is only mentioned to add impetus to the protagonist’s pilgrimage.

Indeed, it is Harold, and at times his wife Maureen, who the reader becomes best acquainted with. On a base level the reader begins to empathise with Harold’s tortured emotions towards Queenie and this only heightens throughout the walk.
From the beginning of the walk and the book the reader is aware of a pain lying just underneath the surface of Harold. Only as the walk, or as Joyce sometimes refers to it, ‘the journey’, develops do we begin to understand the nature and severity of Harold’s pain. Throughout the book one cannot help but draw parallels between Harold’s journey and other patient’s journey towards death.

What stands out in this novel though is the way Joyce cleverly explains to the reader how pain goes so much further than just the pain experienced by the patient. Friends, family and, of course, colleagues can be, and often are, effected by death and the process of dying.

Using this holistic understanding of pain, understanding it as more than just physical but also spiritual and social that can and does impact on friends and family as well the patient, Joyce takes the reader on a powerful emotional journey that is sadly too often out of reach in other novels that touch on issues related to death.

Using Harold’s well-being as an extended metaphor Joyce cleverly intertwines Harold’s hopes, emotions and fears with those of the readers and lets you experience the trials, tribulations and triumphs of Harold’s walk.

The context of which this journey is undertaken – the quintessential English landscape – is, I believe, mistaken by many as being the central theme to the book. Indeed in the reviews published on The Guardian or The New York Times, the life-affirming story and the societal implications of what it means to be ‘English’ or ‘Spiritual’ in the 21st century are drawn out as key themes.

For me, these were side-issues all playing in and relating to how we understand death and the role someone’s spiritual pain can play in that process. I took from the novel, and I believe this was intended as a key theme, the universality of spiritual concern and pain – something which palliative care practitioners have been advocating about for a number of years now.

This is illustrated in the fact that the issues around spiritual pain are shown from the perspective of an atheist (Harold). Regardless of religious beliefs we all have the potential to feel spiritual well-being and of course, pain.

Even when faced with the ultimate twist in the final chapters Joyce still refuses to deviate from what I felt to be the core theme of the book – Harold’s deeply personal anguish and how this not only impacts on those around him, but also on his own ability to be at one with himself.

‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ remains one of the few fictional books I have read that deals with spiritual pain around dying adequately. This is not to say it deals with these issue comprehensively, merely that it acknowledges it to be a central part of what it is that makes us human.

It is perhaps this unlikely source of shared humanity that makes this first novel such a triumph and pleasure to read despite the difficult subjects it addresses.

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August 27, 2014 · 4:18 pm

Ice Bucket Challenge: Pour a bucket of water over my head? Not in Uganda I won’t

This is an article that I wrote for The Daily Telegraph about why I didn’t complete my ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ but did make a donation to Water Aid. 

telegraph 2

You can read the whole article in The Daily Telegraph by clicking here. 

You can watch the video below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6bi8lDtwgY&feature=youtu.be

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July 9, 2014 · 1:56 pm

Hynd’s Blog in top 100 political blogs in the UK

ebuzzing 2
Hynd’s Blog has this month been catapulted to the dizzying height of the ’91st most influential political blog in the UK’ according to the online analysis site ‘e-Buzzing‘.

Hynd’s Blog is still not quite matching the pace set by Labour List, Guido Fawkes or Left Foot Forward who top the list but still…it is nice to know someone somewhere is reading my ramblings. And to whoever you are – thank you! You, the readers, are the difference between this online blogging hobby being something worthwhile or just another blogger exuding the signs of virtual insanity by talking to oneself.

So thank you, it is really appreciated that you take the time to visit Hynd’s Blog.

Well, enough of this sentimental mush….onwards and upwards.

More information:

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June 26, 2014 · 10:29 am

A visit to Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda

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As we enter the long corridor a strip light overhead flickers for a final few seconds before finally joining some of the other lights in the corridor that have long since given up and now do little more than collect dust. The few remaining lights throw strange long shadows down the corridor next to the wheeled beds that rest head to toe along the side of the corridor. It reminds me of the Kampala traffic jam that stacks up outside the hospital in the choking city heat.

No natural light makes it into the corridor but somehow the faint smell of congested traffic makes it up onto the third floor of Mulago Hospital to intermingle with the smell of humans and disinfectant. Avoiding the few harsh strip lights that still work, patients lie either in the shadow of their own headboards or with their thin sheets pulled over their heads.

As I walk down the corridor I step carefully over the relatives, water bottles, half eaten meals and other day to day items that are dotted across the floor. The patients rely on relatives for not just company but also for a lot of the day to day care they need. The smell as you pass some patients makes it abundantly clear that some patients are not receiving the care they need.

I glance sideways making small talk with my eyes to some of the patients whilst trying to keep moving on and keeping up with the representative of Hospice Africa Uganda who I am shadowing. Dressed in the dark blue shirt with a golden collar that marks her out as a member of the palliative care team my host takes large confident strides that exposes her familiarity with the surroundings.  She doesn’t look down as she steps over brothers, books and broken bits and pieces. Instead she angles her thick note book that she is carrying towards the strip light above and looks over notes of the patients she is there to visit.

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We push through some thick wooden swing doors on our left into a room that has one of the young patient we are there to visit as well half a dozen others. The patient we are visiting has terminal cancer and relies on the visits of the Hospice Africa team to bring oral morphine to help her with the considerable pain she would otherwise be in. My host from Hospice Africa Uganda goes straight to her bedside and lowers herself and her voice as she makes confident but kind eye contact with the patient. Speaking in the local language, Luganda, my host subconsciously runs her fingers over the shoulder of the patient as she speaks.

I am told that they ask how bad the patient’s pain is and decide that the current level of morphine is suitable. The sister of the patient, herself barely out of her teenage years, looks on with the juxtaposition of her own youth intermingled with the inevitable death that rests so close to her own, and her family’s, life. Looking as though she is unsure of her role in the nurse/patient dynamic that plays out in front of her the sister reconciles her position by just being physically close to her sister. Both protective and supportive she leans on the bed side throughout the consultation.

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Selfishly my thoughts drift as the Luganda speech drifts around me. I start to think about how if I was diagnosed with terminal cancer I would want to be free, bathed in natural light and surrounded by fresh air not stuck in a overcrowded hospital. Almost immediately I catch myself and realise how ridiculous this thought is – all across Uganda there are patients who are dying of cancer in natural sunlight, surrounded by fresh air with their families who are also in insufferable pain because they have no access to the medical support they need. The pain medication, oral morphine, which the hospice team was there to deliver is little more than an aspiration to most cancer patients in Uganda – let alone early diagnosis and treatment.

Just before we leave, a colleague from the US organisation ‘Treat the Pain’ asks if the patient would like a Polaroid picture with her sister. For the first time a flicker of excitement crosses the patient’s face and she shuffles a symbolic couple of centimetres up the bed for the photo. Together the two sisters sit with their heads pressed together watching as their own images slowly appears in the Polaroid picture.

As we stand to leave we collect up our belongings leaving nothing but the sister, the patient and the Polaroid picture behind.

Speaking later when we are far away from the cluttered dark corridors of Mulago I talk to my colleague from Treat the Pain and we both reflect on how the photo felt like a symbol of how little we could offer as non-medical staff in such situations. The stories we write, the advocacy we engage in, and people we interact with will hopefully change the lives of many more patients to come, but for that one girl and her sister we could offer nothing more than a Polaroid picture – it felt useless.

I know in both my heart and mind that it is important to record stories, to take down testimonies, to photograph suffering. I know it, but sometimes it is hard to feel it in the intensity of the personal suffering you have barged in on, especially when you can offer so little in return.

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Click to enlarge the photos.

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June 17, 2014 · 1:46 pm

Why Amnesty International is right: Both the village of Kafr Qaddum and Murad Shtewi must be freed

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The village of Kafr Qaddum in the West Bank was the scene of some of the worst violence I saw during my half year working as a human rights monitor there.

The village holds weekly demonstrations to demand that their main road be reopened. It was closed by the Israeli military authorities in 2002 to prevent Palestinians from travelling on roads designated for use only by Israeli settlers and adds on nearly 20km to their travel to the main town.

These demonstrations are violent affairs. This is my account of a ‘not so peaceful protest’ which includes footage of a Palestinian being mulled by an Israeli military dog (see below) as well as multiple protesters being shot directly by heavy metal tear gas canisters. This is my account is of a 17 year old boy who was relearning to talk after being shot in the head by a tear gas canister.

As I said – the demonstrations are violent affairs littered with human rights abuses. It is not surprising then that on a number of occasions the Israeli military tried to stop human rights monitors and members of the press from entering the village. On one occasion before a particularly brutal response to the protest I had to travel through the olive groves to avoid the Israeli military checkpoint to gain access to the village.

In midst of this madness trying to marshal events was the figure Murad Shtewi. Murad is (was) a leading activist in the weekly demonstrations held in his village. I met him on a number of occasions normally over strong Arabic coffee and cigarettes to discuss what had occurred in his village during the previous week. Invariably the conversation focused on army raids and arbitrary arrests (painfully common events across the West Bank) but this was juxtaposed to Murad’s middle-eastern understanding of lavish hospitality and his talk of non-violence resistance.

I liked Murad for having optimism in the face of such continued violence (violence that Murad experienced first hand, in the video of the dog attack you can see Murad being pepper sprayed in the face for trying to intervene in the dog attack on his nephew).

Despite witnessing so much violence Murad was also committed to non-violence. This commitment to non-violence is one of the key criteria for Amnesty International who now consider Murad a ‘prisoner of conscience’ after his arrest at around 3am on 29th April of this year (arrests in the middle of the night are common place in the West Bank – even when detaining minors).

Murad is charged with organizing a demonstration without a permit, causing a public disturbance, and throwing rocks during a demonstration. Amnesty International has responded to these charges saying:

“In Amnesty International’s assessment, the charges of rock-throwing and of causing a public disturbance are unfounded. Murad Shtewi has been persecuted for expressing his non-violent opinions and for his role in the peaceful protests in Kufr Qadum against Israel’s illegal settlements. His arrest and detention are a measure to punish him and stop him and other village activists from exercising their rights to freedom of expression and to peaceful assembly.”

As such Amnesty International is calling for Murad Shtewi to be released immediately and unconditionally, as ‘he is a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression’.

This is a call that I am happy to publicly back. On every occasion that I went to Kafr Qaddum I never once saw Murad throw a stone. On a number of occasions I did see him telling others not to throw stones. I also talked to him at length about the importance of non-violent resistance.

This is also the third time Murad has been arrested (each time released without charge) in the last few years, the first was after the dog attack on his nephew.

Simply put, I can’t see how this latest arrest of Murad has any purpose other than to try and deter him from organizing legitimate protests against the Israeli policy of segregation in the West Bank.

It is in light of all this that I ask you to take a few seconds to send this sample letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that significantly not only calls for Murad’s release but also to:

‘take effective measures to prevent the use of unnecessary and excessive force by Israeli forces against peaceful demonstrators’

Please help me help Murad by taking this small action.

For more information:

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June 12, 2014 · 6:45 am

How and why to return today’s free copy of The Sun newspaper

justice
When you get your free copy of The Sun in the post today, you can return it to FREEPOST, The Sun, London E98 1AX.

My suggestion is to write “Justice for the 96” or “You dropped page 3 once, why not forever?” on the front. But I trust Hynd’s Blog readers to think of their own creative slogans as well (suggestions in the comments box below please!).

Let’s get creative and tell The Sun that we don’t want their divisive, misogynistic, lying newspaper in our front rooms.

UPDATE:

Love this from my friend Ellie:

Sun

Wow, the Labour Party has just been entered into the ‘what single tweet has made you most angry/disgusted/disappointed’ competition:

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June 11, 2014 · 9:50 am

My former Head of Year, (Mr) Gareth Warren has passed away – some reflections.

Mr Warren
It has taken me a few days to firstly hear, then to process, the news that my old Head of Year, (Mr) Gareth Warren, has passed away. He was just 61 years old when he died of pancreatic cancer.

I don’t want to eulogise him here. Nor do I want to place him on the pedestal that society reserves only for the dead. Instead, I want to explain why I respected him, even as a teenager when respect was perhaps in shorter supply than it should have been, and significantly why I still respect him to this day.

Mr Warren (it still fills wrong referring to teachers by their first name) had the image of being tough. Almost to the point of caricature, he had a way a sweeping into a classroom that would bring silence and apprehension to even the worst behaved of kids. Invariably he would burst in, take a few exaggerated slow steps through the door and pick with a trained eye the instigator of the troubles before muttering through a thick growl their surname (a hangover from rugby coaching that found its way into the classroom). Their surname would inexplicably gain a syllable at the end adding an ‘e’ noise (Hynd became, Hynd-e).

This, if your name was muttered, was your cue to follow him out of the classroom.

This demeanour though was at least only part charade. Embedded within his teaching was a philosophy of tough love. I have never met a teacher before or since that was better equipped to deal with the plethora of problems, mood swings and anxieties that teenagers have.

When it was needed he was there with his thick growl to bollock you, and believe me, bollock you he would. But, at the same time, he was also there to support you when you needed. I can think of a dozen kids in my year that would have been expelled from most other schools but who stayed at Chosen Hill thanks to Mr Warren’s personal intervention and support.

The current Deputy Head, Shirley Bridgen gave a reasonable summary of this approach to the local paper saying:

“He genuinely believed that all children deserved a chance, especially those who struggled at times to find their way.

“To these students there was an open door, always a way back – this was his philosophy”

This is true. But all of this though makes him sound incredibly earnest like some sort of British Erin Gruwell. He wasn’t – he had a great patience and sense of humour when dealing with kids and style all of his own.

Maybe an anecdote will serve best to illustrate this:

I can remember flouting the no jewellery rule day in day out at school wearing some wooden beads around my neck (don’t ask, something to do with the fashion in the late 90s). To begin Mr Warren asked me to take them off, which I did before putting them back on again. Later, he tried confiscating them for a week – after which I would put them back on again. Finally it got to point where he walked up behind me one day and put one hand on my shoulder, untied the beads, and said (and I remember this very clearly), “Steve you are as insolent as you are annoying” before smiling to himself and walking off shaking his head.

Later that day I got called into his office. He was sat behind the desk wearing my beads and my sunglasses (also confiscated earlier that week). He sat me down and asked me why I didn’t want to be a year 11 prefect. To which I answered, in a way that only as insolent and annoying 15 year old could, that I didn’t want an unpaid job that made me stop people wearing their own necklaces.

Trying not to smile but obviously smirking he then asked me if I would help him out. He asked me if I would speak at some careers event at Gloucester Rugby Club later that day on behalf of the school. I agreed I think mainly because Mr Warren had asked me, not because I actually wanted to.

I guess this anecdote is just about his skill as a teacher, balancing hard-nosed discipline with a light touch of humour and goodwill.  Turning around a situation in one day to be about the student and ultimately what was best for them.

When leaving the Rugby Club after the event Mr Warren thanked me for giving such a good speech. Despite myself, I remember enjoying the compliment. Maybe fishing for another I then asked him why he asked me to talk at the event. He answered, “Because Hynd-e, I can’t get you to shut up so I thought you might as well put your gift of the gab to good use”.

13 years later I work in Communications. I think he might have spotted something in me before even I did.

 

UPDATE (from facebook):

A celebration of the life of Gareth Warren will take place on Friday 20th June, 3:30pm at Gloucester Cathedral. All are welcome.

Family have requested no mourning clothes.

Donations to Pancreatic Cancer UK via www.justgiving.com/GarethWarren

 

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June 10, 2014 · 9:58 am

4 year old who featured in Channel 4 documentary on palliative care has passed away

I have today written for ehospice about 4 year old Abdurahmane who featured on Channel 4’s ‘Unreported World’ documentary who has sadly passed away just a few days after the powerful documentary was shown. Like so many that heard his story I am really sad to have heard this news. I am writing now to encourage you to watch this Channel 4 documentary that looks at access to basic pain medications in Senegal.

Abdurahmane has passed away but I hope his death, as his life was, might be part of what brings about the change so desperately needed in many countries around the world – by no means just Senegal! 

unreported world

This is what I wrote for ehospice:

The life of 4 year old Abdurahmane touched the lives of millions. Abdurahmane had retinal cancer and featured on Channel 4’s ‘Unreported World’ documentary looking at shortages of pain medications across Africa and specifically in Abdurahmane’s home of Senegal.

At the time of filming the documentary he had been in the hospital for three months, receiving chemotherapy, which had shrunk the tumour in his eye.

Abdurahmane had also been one of the few people in Senegal to receive morphine to control the pain he was in. The documentary explained that when stocks are low, the hospital pharmacy gives children priority to the morphine. Sadly though, even in this specialist unit the stocks of morphine sometimes run out.

Human Rights Watch last year highlighted that the authorities in Senegal allow only a very small amount of morphine into the country each year. It is thought they import as little as just one kg, enough to treat about 200 cancer patients when there is demand for tens of thousands of patients in severe pain.

It was through the story of Abdurahmane though that this problem was highlighted to the millions of viewers around the world who would have by now watched the documentary.

It was with great sadness then that a few days after the programme first being shown we learnt of Abdurahmane death.

The award winning journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy who met Abdurahmane and built up a relationship with him broke the sad news on twitter saying:

“Very sorry to say that 4 year old abdourahmane who we filmed about morphine shortages has died”

The impact that Abdurahmane had on the viewers was immediately obvious in the string of responses from memebers of the public.

It is hoped that Abdurahmane life and death will continue to inspire and will drive the change in Senegal that is so desperately needed.

More information:

You can watch the documentary for a limited period on the Channel 4 On Demand facility by clicking here.

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May 29, 2014 · 7:56 am

Channel 4 looks at Africa’s scandalous shortage of pain medications

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhiiIEa7Kl0&list=PLBKfErliSueNJ_4OE2_mUnjvVn5QhLnku&feature=share

“without the political will to change, vulnerable people remain deprived of humane treatment and an end to life free of pain.” 

This is the conclusion of the Channel 4 documentary, ‘Africa’s Drug Scandal’ that I helped to coordinate through my work – the African Palliative Care Association. The documentary is due to be broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK at 7:35pm on Friday 30th May 2014.

I am posting about it here because it strikes me as a rare opportunity to get a large number of people thinking about an issue that is incredibly important to me.

The documentary focuses in on the issue of access to pain medications – predominantly oral morphine. Having access to such medication is something that most people in the UK take for granted. If you were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness tomorrow you would assume that you would be given the appropriate pain control that would firstly enable you to live your life to the full but secondly, would enable you to die a peaceful death.

For the majority of people in the world this is simply not the case. Indeed, as ehospice reported last November, due to a lack of access to inexpensive and effective essential opioids more than 4 billion people, over half the world population, live in countries where regulatory barriers leave cancer patients suffering excruciating pain.

In countries like Senegal where the documentary is set the situation is dire. Last October Human Rights Watch found that the government only imports about one kilogram of morphine each year – enough to treat about 200 cancer patients when there is an estimated need in the tens of thousands of patients!

And so, this is one of the corner stones of my organisations work – to lobby, offer training, educate and empower people to ensure that everyone has access to the pain medications they need.

unreported world

It might seem like an abstract issue, but as Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the renowned Channel 4 reporter finds out, once you see a patient suffering in unbearable but perfectly treatable pain you instantly understand the importance of the issue.

Guru-Murthy concludes the situation amounts to “needless cruelty”.

I find it impossible to see how anyone, when faced with this reality could conclude anything different.

The programme can be watched live online here, on 4OD for 30 days after broadcast here, and you can read a preview in the Radio Times here.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments below.

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April 7, 2014 · 1:34 pm

Watch the first of the Al Jazeera series on access to medical morphine

aljazeera011613I occasionally link here bits of my work with the African Palliative Care Association that I think could be interesting to a wider audience.

Here is a short Al Jazeera report on access to morphine in Uganda that I helped coordinate. It serves as a nice introduction to the subject that leaves millions suffering from perfectly preventable pain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrRUwTj_EMY

The film was shown on repeat last week. On Thursday they had our Executive Director, Dr Emmanuel Luyirika, on to speak about the subject. You can watch the interview here:

In Uganda, a regional leader in terms of medical morphine availability, only one in ten people who need medical morphine have access to it!

For more information:

Help out:

At the moment millions of Africans suffer terrible pain because they don’t have access to really basic pain medication that many people in Europe take for granted. If you feel like I do that no-one should be left to die in pain then please consider:

 

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March 17, 2014 · 11:06 am

10 incredible pictures from the white-water kayaking Nile River Festival

1 by Alexey Dudkov
I wrote a short report for The Great Outdoors (TGO) magazine of the Nile River Festival 2014. 

Click here to read the article and to see the 10 incredible photos.

 

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March 4, 2014 · 9:57 am

Patient photos from Hospice Africa Uganda

Last week I visited Hospice Africa Uganda. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours with some of the patients. I had a really wonderful time.

Sometimes people think of hospices as places where people go to die. This perception is so different to the reality I experienced. This is, at least in part, why I wanted to share these photos. During my visit I was blown away by the vibrancy of life the patients radiated.

Click on the images below to see them enlarged.

*Please do not reuse these photos without my consent. Thanks. 

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February 17, 2014 · 10:04 am

Mike Assenti on the need to change the political climate around flooding

With half of the Somerset Levels currently underwater and thousands of lives and livelihoods put on hold, a huge argument has erupted around the Enviornment Agency and what it should have done to prevent the situation.  Mike Assenti writes for Hynd’s blog on climate change, flooding and his growing frustration with the political establishment.

Somerset-floods_2802176b
Suddenly, it seems everybody is an expert in flood management.

Why weren’t the rivers dredged? Should the rivers even be dredged? Did the Environment Agency give the government bad advice, as Eric Pickles has claimed? Is the Environment Agency’s policy the direct result of the Treasury’s rules, as the EA’s Chairman Chris Smith has countered?

Frankly I don’t know.

Unlike Mr Pickles, I’m more than happy to admit that I’m really not well versed on the evidence on the effects of dredging, and I’m most certainly not an expert in flood defences. But, if you’re interested, George Monbiot wrote a fascinating article on the subject last month for the Guardian.

The media is understandably mostly concerned with the striking images of the effects of this weather, and with the terrible personal stories of those affected. (Now that it is the Home Counties which are facing some serious flooding, the tension seems to have ratcheted even higher…but this is a subject for another, more cynical post.)

Much of the focus has been given to the short term effects of the flooding, and even to the medium term causes and preventative measures. Of course, the fact that there is now a political row attached to this aspect will undoubtedly drive further superficial analysis.

What has had far less attention though are the long term causes of this extreme weather. Whether or not this current batch of weather is definitively linked to climate change is almost impossible to say for certain, but the MET Office Chief Scientist, Dame Julie Slingo has stated that, “All the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change“.

Regardless of the provenance of this current batch of storms, climate scientists broadly agree that one effect of climate change is likely to be the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather.

We have spent years hearing the horror stories of climate change, and even seeing what are supposedly some of the early effects. Agreements have been made as to how best to tackle it, carbon targets set, carbon targets postponed, reduced, and missed. Subsidies have been introduced to encourage the development and installation of renewable power sources, said subsidies then reduced or removed. The leader of a government which came to power claiming to be ‘the greenest ever’, has since been quoted demanding the removal of ‘all the green crap’ from utilities bills.

As an Engineer, I am reluctant to point out a problem without also suggesting a solution. However, in this case my frustration with the attitudes of those in power (both politically and commercially), as well as with a large part of the general public has spilled over from indignant rage into resigned apathy. I don’t know how more clearly the scale of the problem and nature of the solutions to climate change need to be stated before we start to take it seriously. Dozens of solutions to this problem have been mooted, but all of them require a fundamental shift in thinking by those in charge.

Instead of paying lip service to those campaigning for solutions to climate change, we need to start seeing some real action. We need to see real investment in renewables and local storage, rather than incentivising fracking. Countering the assertion of the energy companies that green subsidies are to blame for increasing bills not with (the totally accurate) explanation of how little these subsidies are, but with an explanation of why it is fair that they are paid. Taking more control of public transport, to make it economical to travel by train or bus rather than driving. Appointing an Environment Secretary who isn’t a climate change skeptic would be a good start, not to mention ditching a chancellor who wants the UK to be behind Europe on tackling climate change.

For years now the images of the effects of climate change have been of floods in Bangladesh, typhoons in the Far East and rising sea levels in the Maldives. Now that affluent villages in the South West of England are under water, will we start to see a shift in attitude?

Sadly, I suspect that we will continue treating the symptoms rather than the root cause.

I recently heard an excellent description of climate change skeptics who cite the cold weather in the US as evidence against climate change as standing on the Titanic, claiming, “The ship can’t be sinking – my end is 500 feet in the air”.

Here in the UK, we are ignoring the oncoming icebergs while we argue about drying the bed linen.

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January 27, 2014 · 10:22 am

On genocide, palliative care and enduring hope

Rwanda1
One of the many reasons I love my current job is because of the amazing people I get to interact with on a daily basis.

When working in palliative care you meet people who are being pushed both physically and emotionally and it never ceases to amaze me how people respond to these challenges with humour, courage and most of all, hope. This is true for both patients and medical practitioners.

Today I feel really honoured to have received an article from Dr Christian Ntizimira from Rwanda that marks International Holocaust Memorial Day by looking at the challenges to providing palliative care in a post genocide society.

If you accept my observation that death can push people in conventional circumstances to their limits both emotionally and physically then it is a small step to observe that genocide has the potential to rip both people and society to shreds.

But what sets Dr Christian’s article apart is not the description of how people’s lives were ripped apart and how millions were killed of displaced but how, in the aftermath of such suffering, Dr Christian has chosen to draw out a narrative of hope and courage.

If I was to draw one thing from this last year of working for the African Palliative Care Association – and more generally with palliative care practitioners – it is this optimism in the face of adversity.

Whatever happens, however bad, palliative care offers a simple framework to be able to help. I have seen this in the care patients receive right up to their last breath and Dr Christian powerfully illustrates this point in his article on genocide and palliative care.

You can read Dr Christian’s article visiting ehospice by clicking here >>>

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January 20, 2014 · 9:58 am

Adventure holidays and trips in Africa for 2014

This article was written as part of The Guardian’s ‘Adventure Sports Series’.

Kayak the Nile
From kayaking the Nile and mountain biking in the shadow of Kilimanjaro to exploring Africa’s amazing national parks.

Jinja, Uganda, is a town on the banks of the Nile that is gaining a reputation as the extreme sports capital of east Africa. This is, in part, thanks to the range of whitewater rapids on the nearby stretch of the river Nile.

You can read the whole article on the Guardian Travel site by clicking here >>> 

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January 9, 2014 · 10:13 am

Working with Don Foster MP

For about a year and a half I worked for Don Foster MP who today announced that he would not be standing for re-election in 2015. Here a few reflections on what it was like working for him. 

Don

Don was first elected to the Bath seat in 1992 when he beat the then-chairman of the Conservative party Chris Patten. He was then re-elected with sizeable majorities on four separate occasions serving Bath over 5 parliamentary terms.

I am happy to debate the legacy of his 18 years in opposition and the last three years in government. For now though I wanted to write a little on what it was like working for Don as I think this hits at the heart of why so many consider him to be a fine MP.

The first thing that jumps to mind is his formidable work ethic. 80 hour working weeks became a norm for him spending his weekends back from Westminster attending both public and local Liberal Democrat events in the constituency.

I remember once slumping into the local leisure centre at 7:30 in the morning to go for a swim before work. On the way in I bumped into Don bouncing out of the gym with a huge smile on his face cracking some joke about having a running start to the day.

And this was perhaps the second thing that springs to mind about working with Don – his sense of humour was superb…even in the face of cock ups from his staff.

In the lead up to Christmas 2011, the local press failed to spot a spoof press release about Don’s renowned ukulele playing. The press release intended to invite them to Christmas drinks but in jest invited the press to Don’s launch party for his bid to become Christmas number one. Failing to spot that this story was a spoof it spread rapidly all over Europe with articles appearing in major national and international media – ‘Liberal Democrat MP in Christmas number one bid’. This story was then replaced with the ‘Liberal Democrat MP forced to deny he’s releasing Christmas single’ stories.

A bit of a cock-up.

It would have been understandable for an MP to be pissed off in such a situation. Instead Don took it all in his stride. That year, all his staff received big Christmas presents wrapped up – we all got our very own ukuleles.

To clarify, I am not saying he couldn’t be a grumpy git, he of course could be. But more that considering how hard he worked and the nature of his work he was impressively good natured about it all.

This good humour gave him a foundation on which to interact with people on a very personal level. Watching him interact with a room full of strangers – all of whom would normally know him – was impressive. He just had a way with people that didn’t stem from that stereotype that politicians have of ‘smoothing’ people, but from a genuine interest in people.

I remember sitting with Don just before he was due to go live on BBC Radio 4’s World at One. I was sat holding, and inexplicable reading to myself, a sheet of paper about key lines for the interview. Just before going on air he turned to me and started asking, not about the upcoming interview on national radio, but about a constituent whose case we working on at that time.

Casework for Don, it felt to me, wasn’t just an obligation or even an election strategy like it is for some MPs, but a reflection of his commitment to his constituents and actually caring about what happened to them.

This trait – of giving a shit about people – reflected in the way he showed interest in his staff. I left working for Don to work as a human-rights monitor in the West Bank. When I returned I had been back in London less than a week when he invited me in to have a chat about what my plans were for my next employment. He was eager to help and to ensure that working for him was a building block for me to go onto whatever I wanted to do next.

Don’s politics differ to my own but after working for him for 18 months I can say with certainty that he is a nice guy, an exceptional MP and that the constituents of Bath are lucky to have had him at their service for the last 21 years.

Today Don has been quick to remind everyone that he still has another year and half left to go until he steps down in 2015 and I don’t for a second think he is going to take his foot off the peddle in that time.

I wonder though when that time comes whether he will remember how to put his feet up or whether he will find something new to throw himself into?

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January 8, 2014 · 2:14 pm

On Thomas Hitzlsperger, the FA and homophobia in football

hitzlsperger-1-540x304
Thomas Hitzlsperger, the former Germany International and Everton footballer has today announced that he is homosexual in an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit.

I have written before, most recently with diver Tom Daley as the case in point, about the importance of having men and women in the public eye being open and honest about their sexuality. I won’t rehash that article again here.

The point here is an additional one – the impact that Hitzlsperger’s decision may have on his former colleagues -including those in the FA.

In his interview Hitzlsperger stated that part of his reasoning of coming out was “to further the debate about homosexuality among sports professionals”. An admirable aim and a decision that I am sure will impact on players who are considering also coming out.

It is in this light that his decision will have immeasurable ripples – imagine if a current player no longer feels so isolated and decides to come out. Who knows how much of a game changer his decision might turn out to be.

The Premier League is watched and loved by millions all around the world, but it is still bereft of any openly gay footballer. To reiterate this – out of the 25 players in the 20 teams that play in the Premier League, not a single player is openly gay. 0 out of 500 players. This has held true (with varying squad sizes) for the entire history of top-flight football in the UK.

This then begs the question – why? Why has no playing professional ever been able to be open about their sexuality?

Hitzlsperger described the long “difficult process” of coming out. Something which the openly gay sports journalist Musa Okwonga talks more about here.

This process, even when surrounded by support, can be a challenging one. When surrounded by vitriol and hatred, the likes of which can too often be found in the stands, changing rooms and board rooms of British football, this process can transform into a goliath challenge.

It is interesting that Hitzlsperger specifically mentions in the interview that it is “it was not always easy to sit on a table with 20 young men and listen to jokes about gays”. A comment which hopefully all players will take on board.

But this homophobic banter is not just found in the dressing rooms.

One the hardest hitting sections from Graeme Le Saux’s autobiography was not the childish homophobic taunts Robbie Fowler through at him, the crowds obsessive jeering or even the referee’s despicable reaction of booking Le Saux for time wasting, but the FA’s inability to spot the real issue in the situation – institutionalised homophobia.

It is with a touch of irony then that Hitzlsperger’s announcement comes in the aftermath of the FA’s latest embarrassment – their equality adviser, who on national TV called gays ‘detestable’, resigning from his role.

Michael Johnson, the former Birmingham city defender was appointed to his role, one assumes, because of his stellar track record of tackling racism. It is a damning indictment that no one in the FA looked into his views on other pressing equality issues such as homophobia.

John Amaechi, the first former NBA player to come out in public in 2007, hit the nail on the head when he commented:

“the reason that homophobia, antisemitism, racism and other misogyny continue to blight football is that the FA does not understand how to tackle it. You don’t put one person to handle racism and a gay person for homophobia, you pick people who understand that all bigotry is the same monster.”

Today, hopefully, Hitzlsperger will have highlighted to the FA the need to act and to stop letting homophobia be what he referred to as “an ignored issue” in football.

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December 11, 2013 · 10:23 am

On Thatcher, Mandela and death

Thatcher Mandela
A few days ago a friend of mine emailed me to ask what I thought of Peter Tatchell’s article, “Mandela: Heroic but failed on HIV, poverty & Mugabe” considering that I had been so vocal in the aftermath of Thatcher’s death (See Celebrating Thatcher’s death is wrong both pragmatically and in principle and Thatcher is dead, but Thatcherism is alive: If only it could be the other way round).

On the face of it, following my own logic I should have been upset with Peter’s article. I should have been saying, just as I did for Thatcher, let’s give it a rest, let people mourn and leave the politics out of it…for now at least.

But I wasn’t and nor did I feel I should be.

It has taken me a few days to think this over. In short I think it comes down to a degree of respect for those mourning the death of a loved one. Peter could have waited to write that article, but in the grand scheme of things I am not worried that he did not.

Why? Because very few, if any, of those who cared for and loved Mandela would be troubled by Peter’s article. Throughout he maintained a measured respectful tone that didn’t lose sight of the fact a person had just died and that people were in mourning.

This is markedly different to the witch is dead celebrations that followed Thatcher’s death.

There is a freedom of speech issue here that I will passionately defend. If the state tried to stop people voicing opinion after a death then I would be the first to criticise that. But just because we have the right to do something, this doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.

I would be more than happy to condemn the blithering idiots at the Westboro Baptist Church for producing a video and social media campaign claiming Mandela is going to hell. But do I think the state should stop them from doing this? No.

Do I hope (a big hope I know) that someone who was part of this campaign might read this and reconsider? Yes. Do I personally think they were misplaced, inconsiderate and disrespectful to publish such rubbish straight after Mandela’s death? Of course, it goes without saying!

So in short, Peter and anyone else should be free to write and criticise Mandela, but I would personally lay down two principles before I would put pen to paper criticising anyone soon after their death:

  • Either be measured, respectful and conscious of those in grieving (like I feel Peter was in his article) or
  • Just wait a little while and allow people to mourn before turning to the politics of someone’s life.

Judging by the response I got from the Thatcher articles I don’t expect many people to agree with this but hey, that’s OK. I would just ask those who don’t to imagine it was their own loved one that had just died and ask them to think how they would like others to behave during such time.

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