FROM THE ARCHIVES
Did you know that Dr Canisius Banda [The Pilgrim] was the first resident doctor in 2002 to be stationed in Chongwe from the time it was declared as a district in 1997?
During that time, Chongwe had no hospital so Dr Banda operated from a house belonging to Senior Chieftaness Nkomeshya Mukamambo II who donated it to the Ministry of Health.
A few years later, the district hospital was constructed and by the year 2007, Chongwe district had about 15 resident doctors.
Dr Banda also serviced St Luke’s Mission, over 100 kilometers from Chongwe, in what is today known as Rufunsa district. He serviced this area twice a month to attend to a piling list of patients due to the absence of a resident doctor there.
The author [as Post news editor at the time] visited Dr Banda at his home in Chongwe in January 2004 just before Dr Banda left for Japan for his Masters Degree in Public Health.
The author enjoyed a passionate discussion over tea, touching on a number of subjects.
He seized the opportunity to thank Dr Banda for having diligently attended to the now late Goodson Machona, a senior and illustrious journalist at The Post. Dr Banda was then Chief Medical Officer at Primary Health Care in Lusaka’s Rhodes Park area.
The author was very impressed that such a highly skilled and experienced professional had taken up an under-serviced rural station.
More importantly, it was on this day that an idea for Dr Banda to publish, in The Post, a weekly column on health issues was birthed. The column, with the passage of time, became very popular and ran for many years. The first article was published when Dr Banda was in Japan as a Master’s student.
Of interest to note is that Dr Banda volunteered to serve in Chongwe for two reasons: to enable the people of Chongwe appreciate the services of a doctor within their reach and secondly to serve them loyally.
Both his goals were achieved because Dr Banda informed the author that on several occasions, he actually had to follow some patients to their homes in the villages to serve them as they were unable to reach the hospital for different reasons, lack of transport being one of them.
NB: (Dr Banda has reviewed some excerpts from ***Conversations with Memorable Personalities*** and has this to say:
“This book is illuminating. Unfiltered. Invaluable. Exclusive. Required reading. It’s unputdownable !!!!”)
Below in the picture is Dr Banda seeing off the author after the two enjoyed quality time together in his home.