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WORLD DAY OF THE SICK

A.    INTRODUCTION

The World Day of the Sick was instituted in the Catholic church by Pope John Paul II  on 11 February 1992, with the objective of sensitizing Society of the importance of taking care of and supporting the sick people.


Said differently, sickness should not be lived by the sick person alone.  Compassion and taking care of the Sick will make sickness more bearable; it contributes to maintaining the dignity of the human being as the image of God (imago Dei, Gen 1: 26) in difficult times.


Before centering on the main topic of the Sick, we wish first of all to mention the health worker, the nurse, frontline persons who play a central role of dedication and humanity, offering not just their technical competencies, but also human warmth and words of Comfort that many a times replace the words of Comfort of an absent brother or parent.


B.     WORLD DAY OF THE SICK

There shall be no confusion with the World Health Day, celebrated on 07 April, and through which the United Nations (World Health Organization) brings world attention to focus on specific health themes each year.  The World Day of the Sick on the other hand is a permanent call of the Catholic Church for expressions of solidarity with the patients and their suffering.


To that effect, we are pleased to share the message[1] of Pope Leo, issued on 13 January of the year of the Lord 2026, through which he shares three thoughts:

  1. The gift of encounter: the joy of offering closeness and presence: he insists on the fact that love cannot be passive and therefore, we are called to go, seek out and meet our brother;

  2. The shared mission of caring for the sick.  He reminds us that the good Samaritan sought Shelter to take care of the suffering person, and that similarly, we are called to encourage others in the exercise of solidarity “Always moved by the love of God, we will be able to experience an encounter with ourselves and with our neighbour”.

  3. Always driven by love for God, to encounter ourselves and our neighbor. The Pope reminds us once more of the commandment of love “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” ( Luc 10, 27).


On this World Day of the Sick 2026, Pope Leo asks for gestures of proximity and presence as a way of fighting the pervasive culture of indifference.


C.    THE RIGHT TO HEALTH

Human Rights are conditions of the human dignity that should be claimed, and of basic inalienable freedoms inherent in the human condition, irrespective of age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion or any other condition.  It therefore follows that:


All of us (I, human being, Citizen of the world, African, Mozambican) are entitled to the universal right.  Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 affirms the right of all individuals to health.  That right is reconfirmed in Article 89 of the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, establishing our municipal right to health services as Mozambicans.  That not only obligates the state to promote, but to also ensure access to basic health services, especially preventive and curative health services.


Would we say that the State is fulfilling its obligations?  This may be a rhetorical question.

On the basis of this human right that is universal, the patient enjoys the following rights that we wish to highlight:


The right to protection of individual data is part of the private character of individual life.  Data collected from the patient to enable the tailoring of services need to be relevant and the patient has the right to access the personal data collected.  The information on the state of health of the patient, as well as any diagnostics and treatment regime are protected by the duty of confidentiality of the health practitioner.


The Sick has the right to spiritual assistance, in line with the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and this is a necessity that has a direct effect on the relation that the individual has to establish with his suffering and his illness.  This is particularly important in situations of severe pain or terminal illness.


Illness is one physical evidence of human fragility.  Sickness makes man much more aware of his human frailty. Man ends up discovering the importance of human solidarity as a core value When he is in the care of strangers.


To understand that infirmity does not diminish the human dignity of the Sick is of utmost importance both for the sick and those taking care of him.  That is derived from the fact that we are all made in the image of God, believers of any faith or of no faith at all.  It is therefore important for all those Christians who enjoy good health to remember that the bible says in Mathew 25, 36 and 40 “I was sick and you looked after me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”.

 

D.    OUR WORK IS FAR FROM OVER

We wish to seize this opportunity to point out areas of health services that are important for us Mozambicans and that deserve serious improvement.  Given the health situation of the country and the challenges in providing adequate services to a growing population, a population that is mostly young and aware of their rights, we advance the following proposals to the Mozambican state:


Primo, the need to strengthen health services by inverting the successive budget reductions in the social sectors of health and education.  This measure reinforces national Sovereignty because it improves the lives of the people, holders of the title sovereign.   These two social areas of health and education have been easy targets of budget starvation, under pressure from the IMF targeting staff reductions in the state machinery.  Under the external pressures and budget strain, the state becomes complacent and finds it easier to transfer its responsibilities to the private sector, which in turn is just happy to mint money by taking responsibilities that belong to the state. 


Many a times, those providing private services are civil servants as well!  As the private sector fills the gap, it becomes easy for the state to overlook the need for adequate budgeting of the services needed by a population, especially as 62% of this population lives in rural areas[2].

 

In 1975 (at Independence) we were between 9 and 10 million people in Mozambique.  In 2026 we are over 34 million.  It becomes not just contradictory but self-defeating to reduce the number of civil servants in the two sectors of direct and visible impact on the quality of life of this growing population.  It makes no sense for instance that the same number of teachers of two years ago should suffice in 2026, considering that each year around 1.2 million children reach school age.  For a class of 50, there would be need for 24,000 additional teachers per year.   Under these circumstances, would we wonder that 40% of the school going age that enroll never finish their first year?  As a matter of fact, UNICEF stated in January 2024 that out of 10 school-going age children, (6-17 years), 4 never complete their primary education; only 1 in 4 complete secondary education, stated otherwise, 75% do not complete.  That is education; and what of health?

 

Secundo, investing in health should focus more in prevention than on cure, the latter being more expensive and more debilitating.  Prevention includes not just the vaccination programmes, but also health education.  That would cover an important gap: the lack of renovation of our services, the shortage of equipment and the lack of medicines; When medicine exists, it is expensive in the pharmacy or it is fake medicine being sold by the roadside.

 

Tertio: supporting the costs of health services, where those quality services exist.  Out-of-pocket payment of curative services is very difficult and uneconomical because many a times illness finds the patient and his family unprepared.  Salaries and retirement allowances are not just insufficient, they are even disbursed late by the state, forcing the family to postpone decision on access to public health services.  Instead, alternative and traditional treatment is sought, most of which is uncertified. 

 

In the process, seeking traditional healers and bogus healers is preferred to the services availed by the state.  It is Only in terminal situations, the alternative methods having failed to cure, that the individual is rushed to hospital.  In the process, the family takes on loans among relatives.  You can see where this is going:  It is too late, the patient dies and the family still has to reimburse the debt that enabled it finally to go to hospital.


This is a point at which we can say with certainty that, leaving the family poorer and needier,

poverty is the direct cause of death of poor people.


We therefore encourage the government to study other countries’ health systems that already have included universal health insurance.  Meaning that every citizen has a basic health insurance  cover.


As an African country, Mozambique is a welcoming state.  It has many foreigners, not just because migration is inherent in the human nature, but also because Mozambique shares borders with nine countries[3].  These territories all hold each other’s citizens.  Our argument therefore is that all foreigners should be treated with positivity because we are all a product of ethnicities and nations that cross the borders that were defined by European powers.  In other words, the concept of borders is not African.  Take the Ngoni: they are in Western Mozambique, in Southern Tanzania, in Malawi, in Northeast Zambia, in Zimbabwe, in South Africa, in Eswatini, etc.  And in Mozambique, the Ngoni of Tete, is the same in the Provinces of Gaza and Inhambane, all subjects of the King Ngungunyana. 


It therefore follows that it is unwise to exclude the foreigner from the national health system, expecting him to take the initiative.  Health is a bodily issue and does not obey border tracings.  It is our considered Opinion that any Foreigner living and working in Mozambique in one form or another of permanency shall be included in this system of basic health insurance cover.


E.     HEALTH SOVEREIGNTY

We now enter the uncomfortable message that we wish to transmit: the servitude and mental slavery displayed by many of our chiefs.  That, at the level of health, allow western countries to treat our African countries as human reserves where clinical trials can be done, trials that in the past were only allowed in animals.  Experiments that are not permitted in Europe or America are totally allowed in Africa!  We all know that in the past, these experimentations in western countries have had deadly and criminal effects on minority and poor communities.


We all know for instance that between 1932 and 1972, the United States conducted a study on the untreated syphilis on 600 men in the State of Alabama.  They intended to observe human behaviour on approaching death, despite the fact that at the time there was already penicillin that treated effectively these infections. Over 128 of these men died[4].


Again, in the Northern State of Kano in Nigeria, 1996 was the year of meningitis outbreak.  The Pfizer group undertook an experiment administering experimental antibiotic called “Trovan” to some 200 children, before the drug was approved by the American Food and Drug Administration. A total of 121 of these children died and others were for life either paralyzed or blind and deformed[5].


The black man is the experimental animal, translating a deeply racist mentality of Western world: the black man is dispensable, almost human.  This is an affirmation that unfortunately finds space in the highest echelons of the American government in an open manner.  And some of our governors’ decisions in Africa validate and comfort that racist attitude.


This attitude and self-abandon o four governing elite clearly demonstrate that we still are (and are seen to be) that slave who aspires to be closest to the person that despises him.  You will all pardon my hurtful words, whose actuality we are going to demonstrate below:


Guinea-Bissau

Danish researchers were ready to undertake a study in Guinea Bissau this January 2026, with American funding, designed to observe during five years the following: how would 14,000 children behave, if half of them received the prescribed vaccines at birth and the other half received only six weeks later[6].


Deliberately denying available vaccines to 7,000 children is a health and racist crime that raised an outcry, forcing the government of Guinea Bissau to cancel the experiment.  What would have happened if there had not been a public outcry?  What kind of government is this that offers part of its population as experimental animals?  They offer the unprotected sovereign to unsafe experiment, against what?


Kenya:

On 4 December 2025, Kenya and the USA signed a cooperation agreement on health[7] that caused a violent debate in the Kenya parliament and resulting in the suspension of its implementation.  For our purposes we shall mention just a few paragraphs that seem alarming to us, they seem to surrender sovereignty and to sell data on the national health system to the United States. 


We quote

(i) Art. 2.5.8.18 Both the US government and the government of Kenya intend to maximize integration and interoperability between the aforementioned systems and to ensure that appropriate cybersecurity and data security are in place (personal note on the target systems: NLMIS-National Logistics Information Management Systems, KEMSA-Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, ILMIS-Integrated Logistics Management Information Systems e HMIS-Hospital Management Information Systems).
(ii) Art.  2.5.8.20 The US government and the government of Kenya intend to negotiate a data sharing agreement in line with paragraph 15 on “separate agreements” for the purpose of implementation of this framework.
(iii) Art 2.6.2.3.1.3 Participants plan to migrate USG-operated digital systems to the DHA ecosystem (Digital Health Agency).
(iv) Art. 2.6.2.4.1 Participants plan to align all partner and donor Investments under transparent, MoH-led Governance, and consistent with US standards for accountability and oversight (see article 2.6.2.5.2 insisting on American standard).
6.2 Performance Incentives
Art 6.2.1 In the event that the government of Kenya achieves ... the government of Kenya is expected to be eligible to receive a performance incentive for 2027 or 2028 respectively.

We opine that whoever was the Kenya negotiator, s/he has not negotiated as a representative of a government that manages a Sovereign state, and this Sovereign is unaware that his personal data are now available for racist purposes, Against Money exchanged.  In the hands of the greatest aggressor-state of the planet: the United States.  This government has gone beyond its mandate in representing the state of Kenya in this manner and selling data of its population in exchange for money. 


We all note that the focus of the agreement is the set of information systems (NLMIS, KEMSA, ILMIS e HMIS).  The United States are operating a window to fish human data without the consent of the sick, present or past.  A patient that continues his small life (or his eternal peaceful rest) unaware that he has been sold long ago.


Those of us who have lived through colonial times, or have watched the film “Roots” would read article 6.2 as saying “if Kenya is a good student, it can still expect to receive an “atta boy” pat on the head from the master.


Through its parliament, the people of Kenya of course showed revolt, as would we show disagreement with such an agreement.  Are we, Mozambicans, protected from such nefarious occurrences?


And here we wish to divert a bit from the core issue in order to tease out a few considerations of the same net:


In our (Mozambican) secondary schools there are Counselling offices that distribute contraceptives to our daughters, many of them physically immature and minors, with bodies that are not strong enough for such violent medicine.  And we have witnessed cases of vomiting and fainting. For what purpose?


The fact is that someone, some institution, has led the Mozambique state to adopt a population reduction under the pretext of preventing premature pregnancies.  Would the school be the Only adequate environment for that? Is the objective really to prevent premature, irresponsible pregnancies, or are we Looking at other undeciphered objectives?  Whoever looks at this will not fail to note that taking many pills creates in the female body what are called fibroids, precisely that cause infertility in the women and anxiety in the family.

It is therefore crucial that we reassess our policies and look into, and adjust, the congruence between our policies and our practices.


We had written another article on the National Development Strategies (Estratégias Nacionais de Desenvolvimento)[8] Where we proved that demographics was portrayed as a problem to be solved, not as a positive force that can be used.  The strategies even foresee a Strong demographic reduction over the near future, in order to preserve the environment!  In other words, showing preference for the environment against a population that only represents a weight of 43 persons/Km2 (as compared to Rwanda at 566/Km2, Malawi at 224/Km2 or Tanzania at 75/km2 e)[9].  Pushing our point, we wish to contrast Rwanda, an entire country of 14,889,000 people on a space of 26,338Km2 (566 persons/km2), while Cabo Delgado, one of the eleven Provinces of Mozambique with de 82,625 Km2, for a population of 2,320,260[10] (28 persons/Km2). 


Are we ever aware where our partnership decisions can lead us into?  The deep consequence of this type of priorities actually include de-prioritizing health and the wellbeing of the populace, to prioritize the environments and private property over the population to the point of using institutional violence on the population without hesitation.  Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Cameroon, and the list may grow.

I digressed.


F.     IN CONCLUSION

The World Day of the Sick is a Christian moment of solidarity, renewal of hope, of acknowledging the strength of the support we provide, which allows each individual to overcome the challenges posed by life.


It is a call for a day of national reflection.  in our advanced age, we can easily talk of health conditions that we live with, which while not disabling and not dramatic, oblige us to live with self-imposed limitations.  We are dealing with diabetes and high blood pressure.  Well managed, they still allow us a comfortable but not very expansive life.  We observe with glee our other elderly friends at ages 79 and still climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.


In order to control diabetes and high blood pressure, we are conditioned to take every day a tablet for each condition, one at $1.2 and the other at $1.4 which means each day, we are drinking 166 Meticais.  That seems small until we understand the monthly weight of 4,980 Meticais.  Add to that other costs such as the daily food needs, and compare that with the minimum wage! 


Poverty has been killing people.  We need to improve life expectancy by focusing on preventive health and the introduction of universal coverage of basic health insurance.  Before we even talk of the Sovereign Fund, we have in our country many degrading human conditions that need to be dealt with as a matter of urgency and priority.  It is us who will give life to future generations and for that, we need ourselves to live in a dignified manner. The simple logic dictates that there shall not be a Sovereign fund before overcoming basic human conditions that are undignified, including the forced displacement of populations in Cabo Delgado.  As a country, the forced displacement of the people in Cabo Delgado is he misery of Tete, it is the misery of Maputo!


The government needs to always have in its understanding that it represents the state in a transient manner.  The only permanent partners in this national equation are the people and their state.  Hence, the need to negotiate with technical rigor and professionalism, taking into account the permanency of the partners we just mentioned.


In talking of a shared mission and the love for God and for the neighbour, the Catholic Pope is telling Every state, and in our case, Mozambique, that the state has a duty to the Mozambican citizen, Christian, Muslim, non-believer or any other religious conviction!

National dialogue is the environment in which the state translates its duty to provide curative and preventive health services to its people[11].  It is in these spaces where the sovereign meets with its state that the real national dialogue takes place. Visiting the sick, one of the acts of charity of the Christian Catholic doctrine, is part of the dialogue between brothers.

Jose Canhandula

Tete, February 2026

 

 


[3] Excluding French Indian Ocean possessions.


 
 
 

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