Dr. Asfaw traveled two weeks from Ethiopia to America aboard a cargo ship in 1958, arriving at age sixteen with little money, a small suitcase, and a big dream: to become a doctor and return to Ethiopia with healing hands. He has achieved his dream against extraordinary odds. But he has never forgotten his homeland and the needs of so many of its impoverished and suffering citizens.
Now based in Metro Detroit, the renowned physician commits his time to improving healthcare standards, access, and supplies in Ethiopia. The country needs his commitment, for the average life expectancy is only 40; the HIV/AIDS pandemic claims millions of lives annually; and the ratio of physicians to population is 1:100,000. To date, Dr. Asfaw has donated personal resources and finances and galvanized over 550 medical and non-medical professionals throughout the United States and Canada to give their time and talents to address Ethiopia’s profound healthcare crisis. Toward his humanitarian goals, Dr. Asfaw founded the non-profit Ethiopian North American Health Professionals Association (ENAHPA). The program’s mission:
• Provide medical and surgical services with special focus on women and children
• Promote preventive health maintenance
• Deliver educational materials and medical supplies to healthcare facilities
• Transfer skills and state-of-the-art technologies to healthcare professionals and trainees
• Provide free advanced training to Ethiopian doctors and medical students
• Provide free anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS victims
• Generate financial and educational support for children orphaned by AIDS
• Improve maternal and child healthcare
A humble man but a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Asfaw leads volunteers from the health profession into Ethiopia on semi-annual medical missions. During the May 2005 mission, ENAHPA’s delegation performed nearly 100 surgical procedures; conducted advanced training for 250 Ethiopian healthcare professionals; and donated 32,400 books; provided lifesaving medical equipment, instruments, and supplies to several specialized hospitals, three universities, and a leprosy research training center. During the October 2004 mission, Dr. Asfaw garnered support from several grassroots charities to launch Ethiopia’s first major distribution of free anti-retroviral drugs. The free ARV therapy program, which now cares for 1700 adults and children, will soon include 10,000 patients and serve as Eastern Africa’s blueprint for delivering home-based HIV/AIDS care and treatment. Communities that once lacked hope now believe HIV/AIDS is a treatable disease, as once bedridden family and friends deemed certain to die now lead productive lives.
During a recent medical mission, Dr. Asfaw created a program to support a grassroots Ethiopian organization caring for over 500 AIDS orphans, while his fifteen-person medical delegation performed numerous complex cancer-related oral and maxillofacial reconstructive procedures for impoverished patients. In the same year, Dr. Asfaw and ENAHPA conducted a free, long distance-learning program between American universities Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, and Howard University with over fifty Ethiopian medical professionals. Senior physicians, pharmacy personnel, and various practitioners in Addis Ababa received advanced HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis training. Dr. Asfaw currently spearheads Ethiopia’s efforts to reduce the country’s alarming mother and infant mortality rate through public education and donated maternity kits for clean and safe newborn delivery. He works tirelessly to secure donated funds and advanced medical equipment necessary to build a new Maternal and Child Healthcare Center in the city of Awassa. The city needs it. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 11% of all Ethiopian mothers and children die during or shortly after birth. In rural Ethiopia, nearly 90% of all mothers deliver children at home or walk untold miles to ill-equipped, makeshift clinics. Limited space and beds forces mothers to return home, carrying their newborn children only hours after giving birth.
Dr. Ingida Asfaw not only embodies the American dream –– of the impoverished immigrant achieving extraordinary success and skill in his or her adopted land –– but also the meaning of American citizenship at its most profound. He has educated a generation of healthcare professionals. He has inspired others to reach beyond borders to bring hope to those in desperate need. A man of conscience, a doctor of extraordinary talent, Dr. Ingida Asfaw is also an American hero through the ideals he upholds –– and in the innumerable numbers of people, young and old, whom he has helped to save.
To learn more about Dr. Ingida and his cause, and how you can make a difference, please visit:
www.enahpa.org.
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