Island Achiever
Vanuatu's Myriam Abel Wins a World Position
She's disciplined and gets things done.
High achiever Myriam Abel feels honoured to be elected chairperson of the executive board of the World Health Organisation (WHO). And there¹s no reason why she shouldn't be. She is the first Pacific woman in the to be elected to such a position. It was the Western Pacific¹s turn to nominate a person for WHO chair for 2001-2002.
There are four countries representing the Western Pacific on the board Vanuatu, Philippines South Korea and Japan. While the mandate of the WHO board is three years (Vanuatu is serving its second year), the chairperson stands for a one-year period. Abel¹s commitment to community health was a strong assurance of the responsibility she would undertake.
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Abel, 49, a ni-Vanuatu (with Fijian links), has since March 1999 been a Director of Public Health in Vanuatu¹s Ministry of Health.
To become a member of the Executive Board (the executive body of the World Health Assembly) one has to possess a vast background in public health and her curriculum vitae doesn¹t experience. WHO¹s biennial budget sees to the improvement of ongoing programmes such as tuberculosis (TB), AIDS, proper plans for vaccination and poverty alleviation for instance.
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"Mental health is coming up as one issue that member states/WHO needs to put some thought to," Abel explains."TB, for instance, there is a new strategy called DOTS (Direct Observe Short-Course Treatment), that is endorsed by many countries and in Vanuatu. It's still a major public health problem. "With HIV/AIDS, Vanuatu still reports zero, but there are programmes that we still need to follow through. "The EPI (Expanded Programme of Immunisation) addresses all these communicable diseases that are not yet eradicated so we need to have a solid programme for that."
Vanuatu's World Health office has been operational since before Independence.. The country has been a WHO member since 1983.
Abel, who did her Masters in Tropical Health at the University of Queensland¹s medical school from 1993 to 1994, taught in the school of nursing for 10 years. The core subject being public health, obstetrics and personal development.
She has a Diploma in Nurse Education from Armidale College of Advanced Education (1984), Diploma in Nursing from the French Nursing School (1972), and numerous other certificates on health-related aspects.
She has pushed primary health Care. The curriculum taught in Vanuatu's School of Nursing now is much more primary healthcare oriented rather than the former hospital-based programme. Since 1989, following a revision of the nursing curriculum, one could now call it a Vanuatu curriculum because it addresses the country's health situation as it stands.
In her nursing days, Abel did a six-month attachment at Tahiti's Mamao Hospital doing paediatrics and midwifery nursing. She was, at the time, the head of the then-French maternity ward. Abel sees her election as WHO executive board chairperson as a reward. "I¹m 49 years old and getting on to retirement age. I think it's the best that anyone could wish for.
"I started off as a nurse. I followed my interest. What I am today, I'm happy and I think I¹ve done some things that people have considered important.
"I'm the kind of the person that likes things to be done in logical, sequential order and I would never leave tasks unfinished.
"When something's got to be done, it has to be done from A to Z. And my colleagues know me very well for that. "I'm always arguing for more discipline in the delivery of health service. But I'm very clear in what I want to do."
