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The Human Resource in a time of Pandemic: Vulnerabilities and Strengths

Hosted by Dr Kyrtania Pather, we delve into the many human challenges our health workers and health professionals faced and continue to face during this pandemic, with special emphasis on their mental health and well being, as well as their forms of struggle, solidarity, resilience and the strategies that came to the fore during the pandemic. We consider what this pandemic crisis has brought to the surface about longer term patterns, and ask what we can learn from this into the future. Our guests are Dr Atiya Mosam a medical doctor and Public Health Medicine Specialist, with a passion for healthcare financing and economics, health promotion and prevention for non-communicable diseases who works at PRICELESS SA. She is joined by Prof Mosa Moshabela, the Dean and Head in the School of Nursing and Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He was recently convener of the 雷速体育_雷速体育直播 response team at UKZN, and is advisor to the Department of Health there, leading a team creating an Institute of People centred Health; while his research is HIV and TB focused he is a Family Physician, generalist primary healthcare practitioner and a demographer by training. He is currently the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Health in the Academy of Science of South Africa, along with chairing many commissions locally and globally.

Kyrtania Pather

Dr Kyrtania Pather  is a lecturer and course coordinator for the Health System Sciences 3rd year course in the department of family medicine, where she focuses on teaching final year undergraduate students about the South African health care system. She has also just completed her PhD in cell biology. Her research focused on the implications of breast cancer hormone treatment on platelet activation by studying various molecular alterations and their responses. Kyrtania is passionate about learning, teaching, sharing knowledge with a keen interest in breast cancer research and the possible outcomes treatments and co-treatments may have, especially with the increasing prevalence of more aggressive breast cancers within the South African population.

Atiya Mosam

Dr Atiya Mosam is a medical doctor who completed her medical degree in 2007 at the University of the Witwatersrand. Atiya worked in clinical care, research and management at a primary care level before joining the University of the Witwatersrand, School of Public Health as a Public Health Medicine Registrar in 2015. She is currently a Public Health Medicine Specialist who also holds a Masters of Public Health (Policy and Management) and a Masters Of Medicine (Community Health). Atiya holds an interest in healthcare financing and economics, health promotion and prevention for non-communicable diseases and human resources for health. Atiya works at PRICELESS SA as a senior researcher and project manager and is currently involved in a multi-country study on the mental health of health care workers during COVID-19.  Atiya aspires to contribute towards health for all South Africans and her passion for social upliftment extends beyond her career. She has been involved in numerous projects to increase awareness of and funding to various causes such a homelessness and HIV affected youth. She has also served on various Executive Committees, including a role as the Secretary of the Public Health Association of South Africa. Atiya is an IAP Young Physician Leaders alumnus and serves as co-chair of the IAP COVID-19 Global Advisory Committee as well as the YPL Alumni Committee.

Moza Moshabela

Prof. Mosa Moshabela (MBChB, MMed, MSc, PhD) is the Dean and Head in the School of Nursing and Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). He is also Adjunct Faculty and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Africa Health Research Institute. He was recently convener of the 雷速体育_雷速体育直播 response team at UKZN, and advisor to the Department of Health in KZN. He currently leads a team to establish a new Institute of People-centred Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research portfolio in implementation science and health systems research cuts across multiple disciplines, and involves the design, implementation and evaluation of complex interventions in public healthcare services and programs, and overall seeks to improve access, quality and equity in healthcare, in ways appropriate for resource-poor settings in sub-Saharan Africa. Although his research is grounded mostly in HIV and TB, he is a Family Physician, generalist primary healthcare practitioner and a demographer by training. He is currently the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Health in the Academy of Science of South Africa, health commissioner in the Provincial Planning Commission and advisor to the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, a member (2018-2020) of the Lancet Commission on Synergies between Health Promotion, Universal Health Coverage and Global Health Security, and a commissioner in the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Global Roadmap towards Healthy Longevity (2019-2021) commission.

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