My symptoms started when I was around 16. I could still walk around, but I was starting to get tired very quickly. As time went on, I began to get weaker, needing a walking stick, and then a Zimmer frame. It was a very challenging time, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally; as a very active teenager with newfound independence, there was so much anger and confusion about what was happening to me. I went from one doctor to the next and none of them really understood what was going on.

As a firm believer in the power of dialogue, one of our first major projects was a dialogue-based advocacy effort initiative as part of NCDAK’s contribution to the Global Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs. The Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs in Kenya, which was supported by the NCD Alliance, was also developed through this initiative. Through a number of forums, the Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs in Kenya has provided persons living with NCDs with a platform to share their views and experiences with healthcare providers, policymakers, and the public, allowing them to articulate their advocacy requests in their own words.

Up until recently, the notion of involving people living with NCDs in the NCD response is not something we have seen extensively in Ghana, so NCD Alliance’s support through the Our Views, Our Voices initiative has been extremely helpful in elevating the concept of meaningful involvement of people in our communities and addressing stigma. The Our Views, Our Voices initiative sets out to promote the meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs, advance their rights, and combat stigma and discrimination.

When I was working in Tokyo as a young pediatric resident, access to healthcare was something I took for granted. Everyone had full access to care based purely on their medical needs. It wasn’t until I worked in the rural Philippines in the mid-90s that I realized this wasn’t the case everywhere. At the time, infant mortality in Japan was around two or three out of one thousand. By comparison, in the Philippines, it was between 50 to one hundred. I witnessed firsthand the challenges people face in accessing basic medical care. The stark difference between my home city and this remote village in the Philippines really highlighted for me the treatment disparity and importance of UHC.

Shortly after the guidelines were developed, however, it became apparent that we needed to do more to get the information out there, so we set about disseminating them further and creating greater awareness. The roll-out phase consisted of distributing the guidelines in six of the 47 counties across Kenya. This also included a training component through which we trained health providers who then shared their learnings with other colleagues in their facilities. Fast-forward a few years and we are now in phase two of the project, which sees us branching out and carrying out activities in four new counties.

When I was working in the field in the mid- 90s, there was a lot more competition and far less connectivity between actors than there is today. Over the past 20 or 30 years, we’ve become a lot more thoughtful about partnerships. There’s a much greater notion of shared responsibility and an understanding that we can achieve greater and more sustained impact by pooling expertise and resources. Improving access to NCD care is such a multi-faceted challenge, so it’s only logical that multiple players should collaborate to solve the challenge. It’s not just about getting medication to patients. It’s about changing mindsets and policies. Suddenly, it’s not so easy for one actor to solve alone.

Vietnam faces a growing NCD burden: hypertension has been steadily rising over the last two decades, while diabetes is expected to eclipse all other NCDs to be among the country’s leading diseases causing death and disability by 2030. 

“The reasons why hypertension and diabetes are increasing now are because of economic development, rapid globalization and change of lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, drinking a lot of beer and wine, lack of physical activity and an unhealthy diet.”

It’s important to conceptualize and map out how harmonization efforts across all partners will contribute to reaching shared goals, and to articulate what value it will bring. Measuring the resulting efforts of collaborative partnerships requires agreement on metrics, indicators, and diligent reporting. The global healthcare community has a real opportunity not only to increase access to care for people living with NCDs, but to say “we’ve come together. We’ve agreed as a bloc on how to collaborate” and show others the way.

The general sense of complacency about heart disease among the population must change and policymakers must pay attention. People seem to think that dying from cardiovascular disease is normal, and that one day your heart will simply stop – but that is simply not true. There is unnecessary suffering. CVD is not jus painful for those who suffer from it and for their families, but for the economy and society.