Health advice in a foreign land

Weekender
TRIBUTE

Freelance writer DANIEL KUMBON remembers former Health Minister Jamie Maxtone-Graham for a personal moment during a meeting at an international conference in Mexico City.

JAMIE Maxtone-Graham encouraged me to give up Coca-Cola when we met for the first time far from home in Mexico City in August 2008.
It’s not very often that you come across a national minister who talks to you on a personal level on health or other important issues that affect our lives.
But Jamie Maxtone-Graham was different. First impressions count.
Here was a national health minister who was prepared to tell me that Coke was not good for my health.
We were attending the 17th International Aids Conference in Mexico City.
It was at the Global Village that I met Maxtone-Graham, national Health Minister, Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on HIV/Aids and three-term Member for Anglimp-South Waghi.
The Global Village with an area of over 8,000 square meters was the very heart of the XVII International Aids Conference open to everyone who attended.
Here, over 22,000 delegates from all over the world spent a week and participated in conference sessions, satellite meetings, exhibitions as well as the Global Village and a wide cultural programme.
Maxtone-Graham had led a PNG team of doctors, activists and health professionals to mix with the general public, communities living with and affected by HIV, policy-makers, researchers and other stakeholder groups to interact, debate, share knowledge and skills, build coalitions and exchange ideas at the conference.
I was part of a group of international journalists sponsored by the National Press Foundation in Washington DC to attend the conference.
We also attended a workshop on Aids where many specialists including Unaids executive director Dr Peter Piot spoke to us on various issues on the global fight against the endemic and how the information can be disseminated to the masses.
Meeting at the Global Village

Daniel Kumbon meeting activists from India at the Mexico conference in August 2008.Daniel Kumbon meeting activists from India at the Mexico conference in August 2008.

I met Maxtone-Graham at one of the venues in the Global Village. He wasn’t with any of the delegates from PNG.
Nearby in a huge auditorium, official scheduled speeches were delivered by world leaders, scientists and company executives involved in doing research to find a cure for the virus.
My group of journalists shared a large media center used by hundreds of other international journalists who flashed the news as it happened across the globe.
I came home and recorded my experiences in my book I Can See My Country Clearly Now.
After Maxtone-Graham and I visited as many stalls as we could, he suggested we pay a visit to the display of the host country – Mexico before we could go for some refreshments. We found communication was a problem. They spoke Spanish.
At the restaurant table Jamie did not talk about the ancient ruins at Teotihuacan or how big the city of Mexico was compared to Port Moresby – things we as first time visitors could have been talking about.
But here the national minister talked about healthy living. I probably provoked him because I ordered Coke to go with my meal.
“Bro, we must look after ourselves. Many things we eat and drink are not good for our health,” he said.
“Our health is very important. There is no second life and this life we have is just one and our very own. We must nourish it with good food and drinks.”
I knew he was right but drank that damn can of Coke anyway in that busy restaurant where the waiters all spoke Spanish.
But later at home, I gradually gave up Coke completely as well as beer, cigarettes and buai. I wrote about my change of life-style in my book too.
I didn’t have to wait for a miracle to happen or a giant from outer space to come and order me to stop these bad habits!
It was shameful indeed for me as an educated person because I am supposed to know that liquor, Coke, buai and smoke caused many health problems including cancer which killed people prematurely.
The encouragement from Jamie was enough for me to make up my mind to give up these bad habits. I had to.
There is no cure for Aids but yet people seemed to be still involved in extra-marital affairs, prostitution and unsafe sex despite millions of kina spent every year by the Government and aid donor agencies to discourage people from unhealthy habits
Three young men – a teacher, a trainee teacher and a security guard from my village died from Aids complications soon after I returned from the international conference in Mexico. They all knew Aids has no cure.
I feel thankful that a national minister played a part to convince me how important it was to change my life style and look after my life.
I agree with Sir Julius Chan who says in his tribute that the late Jamie Maxtone-Graham strived to make this country a better place for all, especially through his advocacy on health and sustainable way of life.
“He has left his mark in this world. The good he left will never be forgotten but live on in every person he has impacted,” Sir Julius said.
And Carmel Pilotti wrote an enduring piece about his early childhood, education, employment and how he rose to the top in PNG politics and finally his advocacy for healthy living in the last 10 years.
Late Jamie Maxtone-Graham was born in Bargana village in Minj, Jiwaka province to mother Gol Milin and father Peter Maxtone-Graham.
His early childhood was spent in Wasne, his mother’s home village where he had fond memories of being carried by his maternal grandmother.
Move to Madang

Dr Ninkama Moiya and part of the PNG delegation who attended the conference.

Much of his later childhood was spent in Madang where he and his mother had moved with her partner Posu Pouta, after his father had passed away. Madang is where he lived and went to school.
Completing grade six at Kusbau Primary School in 1969, he remembered the biggest news was that year was Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.
He went to Tusbab High School where he always topped his class. In 1977, he was accepted at the University of Technology in Lae to do a mechanical engineering course but withdrew after three years.
Later, he attended Port Moresby Technical College and worked for different companies around the country until the turning point came for him when he worked as advisor to former Prime Minister Paias Wingti from 1990 to 1993.
It was in the years leading up to this role that his political aspirations blossomed and eventually propelled him to pursue a seat in parliament.
He won the Anglimp-South Whagi Open seat in 2002 and stayed there for 15 years.
And in 2008 I had met him personally in Mexico as national health minister.
He must have sensed that his own health was failing him when he told me to give up Coke and aim to live a good healthy life.
According to his daughter Carmella, her father was an avid promoter of healthy living for the last ten years due to a health scare that drove him to change his life-style in 2009.
“He was told by a doctor that he had blocked arteries and had to get bypass surgery, but he was determined to find another way to find another option.”
His own journey to health motivated him to inspire others, which led to the opening of the Wellness Lodge in Port Moresby where he and Carmella ran a health conscious restaurant and lodge.
Most memories of Jamie are of his adventurous spirit and his intelligence. Widely read, he had a broad spectrum of topics he was knowledgeable on.
“He was also a very simple person. He loved to spend time with his grandchildren, playing sport with people much younger than himself, outdoor activities like camping and eating fish cooked on a fire, playing the guitar and singing – his memories of his childhood were what made him happy,” Carmella said.
I will remember the late Jamie Maxtone-Graham as the man who encouraged me to live a healthy life from a strange land far away from home.
He has left but his words will remain with us to accept and follow if we care at all about our short life on earth.