Catholic Bishops’ Pastoral Letter says COVID-19 pandemic has exposed how health care service is under-resourced

By Duncan Mlanjira

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed how under-resourced Malawi’s health system is in terms of infrastructure, equipment and personnel. 

This is contained in the Catholic Bishops’ Pastoral Letter which was released on Sunday and says this deteriorating health system has happened because for a long time the country’s leaderships have not put enough resources into the system and some of the little that has been put into it has been misused. 

“In addition, there was over reliance on medical facilities outside the country instead of developing systems of our own,” says the Pastoral Letter.

“Furthermore, the healthcare workers are under motivated. Here too, the biggest losers are the poor and the vulnerable citizens.

“While appreciating the efforts made so far by the Government and the international community in finding resources and setting up committees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is still need for a more inclusive and coordinated approach, more public awareness campaigns and transparent use of resources. 

“As we have stated in our recent statements, COVID-19 is real and deadly. We are concerned with sections of society who deny the existence of this disease. 

“Similarly, we are concerned with a lack of consistency in observing the precautionary measures. For example, while people observe them in churches they ignore the same precautionary measures in markets and other public places. 

“In the event of imposing restriction on mobility there would be need for social support for the poor and the vulnerable and such support should not be politicised.”

They also talk of the education system, saying it has suffered the same challenges in terms of limited funding, substandard infrastructure, inadequate learning materials, insufficient and under motivated personnel, in addition to unstable curricula. 

“Increasingly, we are seeing a two-tier system of education: private, which is deemed to offer better education for the rich and a dysfunctional public one serving the poor and the vulnerable. This promotes inequality in our society.”

The letter says this is due to many reported cases of corruption and plunder of national resources at all levels which was openly exposed through the Cashgate Scandal that opened people’s eyes to the reality of fraud in their midst which remains a problem to this day. 

“The biggest victims of these evils are the poor and vulnerable people and this calls for strong, decisive and exemplary leadership at the top.”

The Bishops observe that while the Malawi Defense Force (MDF) “is mostly regarded as professional and enjoys a lot of public trust and confidence, the Malawi Police Service is generally considered as partisan and dysfunctional and has lost a lot of public trust”. 

“In addition, the Malawi Police Service is underfunded leading to inefficient service delivery and poor welfare of police officers” and on this the Bishops quote Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, no. 36 that says “It is to the interest of the community, as well as of the individual, that peace and good order be maintained”.

“These dysfunctional systems of public service delivery underline the necessity of electing a leader with the qualities outlined above.”

As stated in the 2018 Pastoral Letter (A Call for a New Era in Malawi), the Bishops maintain that the destruction of the environment in Malawi is clearly manifested in the accelerated destruction of natural resources like forests and natural habitats as well as the failure to seriously develop renewable energies.

“The situation continues to deteriorate. We risk desertification of our land, creating food insecurity in the country and increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. 

“The plunder of Chikangawa forest is a typical example of the continuing environmental degradation in Malawi. This affects mostly the poor and the vulnerable.

They quote Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, no. 48 that says: “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together … the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people”. 

And the “preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family” (Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, 2007).

The Catholic Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi that are signatories to the Pastoral Letter are Most Reverend Thomas Msusa (President and Archbishop of Blantyre); Right Reverend Martin Mtumbuka (Vice-President and Bishop of Karonga); Most Reverend Tarsizio Ziyaye (Archbishop of Lilongwe); Right Reverend Peter Musikuwa (Bishop of Chikwawa).

The others are Right Reverend Montfort Stima (Bishop of Mangochi); Right Reverend George Tambala (Bishop of Zomba); Right Reverend John Ryan (Bishop of Mzuzu) and Very Reverend John Chithonje (Diocesan Administrator of Dedza).