Decolonizing a Wretched Healthcare System: The African Public Health Practitioner Case

Over the past two years, public health practitioners in African countries have worked actively to combat the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with relatively low fatality rates. This pandemic has forced healthcare professionals to re-think and redesign the healthcare system within their own country.

Using the Afrocentric PEN-3 framework and a letter style, the purpose of this commentary was to describe the positive, existential, and negative socio-cultural values associated with African healthcare systems. The commentary also highlights socio-cultural factors affecting public trust in African healthcare systems and their health agencies and how systematically decolonizing them may decrease foreign reliance and empower efficient locally based solutions.

We, as African public health practitioners, make three key points in this commentary. First, African public health practitioners have developed resilience within under-resourced healthcare systems. Secondly, oral tradition in African societies and its byproduct (social media) is the means through which people connect and share what they know about any topics (COVID-19). Thirdly, African leaders have particularly contributed to the high level of distrust in their countries' healthcare systems in favor of the healthcare systems of industrialized countries.

This commentary concludes with implications for encouraging African public health practitioners to cultivate the resilience that has led to contributing to the wellness of millions of Africans during this COVID-19 pandemic.