Luke Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at World Child Cancer, shared on LinkedIn:
“Each year, the International Society of Paediatric Oncology brings together clinicians, advocates, researchers and programme managers from around the world to share experience, expertise and ideas about how we improve outcomes for children with cancer.
But this year, one thing that stayed with me was who was not able to be in the room.
A number of colleagues from Africa and Asia faced restrictions or significant challenges travelling to SIOP, meaning that some of the people with the greatest experience of delivering childhood cancer care in lower-resource settings were not able to participate in these conversations in person.
That is a real shame.
It means fewer opportunities to share experience and expertise, and fewer opportunities to develop the kind of powerful collaborations that create sustainable change.
It also means that too often people from the US and Europe can find themselves talking to each other about challenges in lower-resource settings without enough of the people who live and work with those challenges day in and day out being part of the conversation.
In one really important meeting on improving access to treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in low-resource settings there was considerable enthusiasm and expertise, but far too few people from Africa and Asia to help understand the challenges and shape the opportunity.
For global health collaboration to work, the people closest to the challenges need to be able to help design the solutions.
The US and other high-income countries can be such powerful agents for positive change; partners that help raise the tide which lifts all boats. This past week I met with many dedicated individuals and organisations in the US working to create positive change despite the challenges the current global environment can present for international collaboration.
It was a reminder of something at the heart of World Child Cancer’s mission – genuine international collaboration depends on people being able to come together, share their expertise and be part of the conversations that affect their communities.
So, the question I keep coming back to is: how do we work together to make sure global health conversations genuinely include the people closest to these challenges, with those voices in the room and able to shape the solutions?”
Other posts feauring Luke Thomas on OncoDaily.