%0 Journal Article
%T Decolonizing a Wretched Healthcare System: The African Public Health Practitioner Case.
%A Whembolua GL
%A Tshiswaka DI
%J Ethn Dis
%V 34
%N 1
%D 2024 Jan
%M 38854788
%F 2.006
%R 10.18865/ed.34.1.49
%X <B>UNASSIGNED: </B>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.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>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.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>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.<BR><B>UNASSIGNED: </B>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.