Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi, Ed. 2014. Healthcare Management Strategy, Communication and Development Challenges and Solutions in Developing Countries. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. $90.00. pp. 256. Hardback. ISBN‐10: 0739185667 .

• Author: Cassandra M. Sweet
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.130
• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015

Book Review

Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi, Ed 2014. Healthcare Management Strategy, Communica-

tion and Development Challenges and Solutions in Developing Countries. Lanham, MD:

Lexington Books. $90.00. pp. 256. Hardback. ISBN-10: 0739185667

The symptoms start within two weeks of infection: fever, sore throat, muscle

pain. By the time the patient is experiencing the more pronounced features of

the disease—vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding within the body and externally—

the mortality rate may reach 90 percent. Thus progresses Ebola, which as of mid-

2014 was reaping social, political, and economic havoc across Western Africa.

As international health organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders, declared

they had reached their full capacity and could no longer send teams to new outbreak

sites, the disconnect between the coordination of a global response and local health

policymakers stood in stark relief. A wave of f‌inger pointing commenced.

The Lancet called the WHO’s response late and inadequate. WHO off‌icials

described a lack of receptivity from local religious, political, and cultural leaders.

The slashing of the WHO’s annual budget for crisis response (from $469 million

in 2012–2013 to $229 million in 2013–2014) stood out as an ironic joke on lessons

in imprudent global public health resource management and an experiment in

tragic lunacy. Across thousands of villages, basic resources like gloves, bleach,

and plastic wrap for mounting corpses were in short supply. What started as an

isolated outbreak affecting poor and rural Africans grew to an epidemic with

potential global implications.

Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi’s collection of essays on health-care management

in developing countries would have been appropriate reading for all involved.

Comprising 11 essays, this timely book offers a review of emerging studies on

health communication and delivery, providing for academics and policymakers

insights from local researchers working on the front lines. Most importantly, it

offers evidence of the critical role communication with local communities plays in

effective health policy.

The book’s range spans theory and design, health and communication policies,

experiences, implementation, and education. It illustrates the Gordian knot of

coordinating, communicating, and delivering health care in fragile institutional

World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2015

86

1948-4682 #2015 Policy Studies Organization

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