Health Conference co-hosted by Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHBl) and the Ministry of Health.

Ubuntu is a Zulu greeting meaning ‘I see you’.  The response is; ‘I am here’.  As a philosophy it focuses on people’s allegiances and relations with each other. A person is a person through (other) persons.  Our interdependence.  So what?

This was a concept discussed at the CMDHB Conference held last week.  Read further for why this is great news for consumers!!

We affirm our humanity when we acknowledge that of others.  You seeing me means that I exist, I matter, you respect and understand me. 

It means that it is a basic human right of the patient to be informed and empowered to make choices in their health care. This is one of the philosophies behind why consumers should have a larger role to play in their health care. 

The rise of the ‘expert patient’ was also looked at.  Health is complex and health needs are getting more complicated and interrelated.  There is no longer one health professional that can ‘cure’ us.  It is a team of workers who help us to achieve good health & wellbeing outcomes.  The patient in the middle of this has unique insights that may help to solve the challenges that our health system faces.  They become ‘an expert patient’, with valid insights, ideas and possibly even solutions.  If there is a philosophy which truly sees the patient,  combined with an increasing trend for patients to be ‘experts’ in their health conditions,  then the opportunity for influencing without authority becomes a possibility. 

There is a large measure of personal responsibility and duty of care on our part as the consumer, inherent in the philosophy of Ubuntu.  We need to be informed and engaged.  We have a duty to share honestly our feelings and experiences of a system.  Why? – because our insights could be shared with others giving them a larger truth which could alter how a service works. 

With being seen, we need to answer ‘I am here’.   So the excitement for us at the Support Group is that there is a movement towards more collaborative planning processes within health.    Our organisation’s role is to be the conduit which can more easily bridge the gap between the individual patient experience and the health organisation.

If you have feedback on the system, let us know.  Answer  I AM HERE.

If you are interested in more information from the conference you can see transcripts of the presentations at http://www.cmdhb.org.nz/Conferences/2008/tomorrowshealthservices/workshops.htm