Tri-Valley Herald, CA
Sept 4 2004
Health system expands coverage
ValleyCare volunteers work to improve health care in Azerbaijan
By Matt Carter, STAFF WRITER
PLEASANTON — When U.S. interests are at stake in odd corners of the
world, the “boots on the ground” aren’t always worn by soldiers.
Volunteers with ValleyCare Health System and the Alameda County
Department of Public Health have signed on to a four-year project to
improve health care in troubled Azerbaijan.
The predominantly Muslim nation of 7.9 million people is rich
in oil, but has been fragmented by war since the collapse of the
Soviet Union. Situated between Iran and Russia on the Caspian Sea,
Azerbaijan also is coping with environmental damage caused by oil
spills and pesticides.
A five-member delegation from the emerging nation arrives Sunday for
a week-long stay in the Valley, where they’ll see the latest medical
techniques and practices first hand.
Azerbaijan has an infant mortality rate of 82 deaths for every 1,000
live births — more than 10 times greater than the United States.
ValleyCare board member David Mertes of Livermore said the main goal
of the program is to improve health care for women of childbearing age,
newborns and children.
“While some of the program will impact (adult) men and older folks,
the priority issues are related to women of reproductive age,” Mertes
said. “Things such as ovarian cancer, breast cancer and cervical
cancer are very high on the list.”
ValleyCare has been involved in a similar project before, helping
doctors in Snezhinsk, Russia, provide better medical care.
The goals of that three-year program included creating jobs and
bettering living conditions for Russian nuclear weapons scientists,
in the hopes of reducing the likelihood that they’d leave home to
work for nations hostile to the United States.
Mertes said the “very successful” outcome of that project led to
another offer.
“A year or so went by, and we were contacted by the American
International Health Alliance, and asked if we were interested in a
project in Azerbaijan,”
Mertes said.
The Health Alliance, which administered a $750,000 Department of
Energy grant for the Snezhinsk project, is overseeing a U.S. Agency
for International Development grant of about $800,000 for work in
Azerbaijan.
“When we were approached again, I think it was because we had the
experience,” Mertes said. “They said this was their first program in
Azerbaijan, and they didn’t want to have a failure right off the bat.”
As was the case with Snezhinsk, most of the money is earmarked for
travel expenses. The goal of both programs is an exchange of expertise,
not the purchase of supplies and equipment.
“We have two criteria,” Mertes said. “Whatever is done must be of
a nature that it can continue after the project ends. It has to be
sustainable — not, ‘We leave after four years and it stops.’ Second,
it must be replicable in other cities.”
According to the CIA Fact Book, the average life expectancy in
Azerbaijan is 63. The CIA estimates that foreign firms plan to invest
some $60 billion in the country’s oil fields, but a dispute with
Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region has slowed the country’s
development and created 800,000 refugees.
“Corruption is ubiquitous and the promise of widespread wealth
from Azerbaijan’s undeveloped petroleum resources remains largely
unfulfilled,” the book concludes.
Mertes and Mike Ranahan, a gynecologist affiliated with ValleyCare,
visited Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, and another city, Ganca, in May.
In June, a delegation of five health care professionals from the East
Bay conducted a tour that included refugee camps surrounding Ganca.
In addition to Ranahan, the delegation included ValleyCare infectious
disease nurse Jessica Jordan and three Alameda County Public Health
employees: Marla Blagg, and doctors Tony Iton and James Steward.
Mertes said the information will flow both ways in the program,
and that ValleyCare’s volunteers expect to learn as well as teach.
Snezhinsk “was the first foray ValleyCare got into with international
stuff,” Mertes said. “We learned a lot about ourselves by looking at
how other people looked at the way we did things. You can’t do it
without asking yourself, ‘Why am I doing it this way?’ It’s really
valuable.”
While they are here, the group from Azerbaijan will tour ValleyCare
facilities in Livermore and Pleasanton, Highland Hospital in Oakland,
and the University of San Francisco Medical Center.
On Wednesday, the group — which includes Ganca’s vice mayor and the
minister of health for the region — will see an Oakland A’s game,
courtesy of Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty.
Next Saturday, the group will meet with their American counterparts
and devise a work plan for achieving the program’s goals.
“During the course of the week, we’ll decide on specific things they
want to accomplish,” Mertes said, “and determine whether we can help
them achieve them.”