CACHA Volunteer Warren Meek Receives Pillar of Pharmacy Award from The Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy

 

Warren Meek, pharmacist and human being extraordinaire, won the 2024 Canadian Pillar of Pharmacy after being nominated by CACHA’s Ukerewe Island medical mission team members.
At the gala event this past month, Linda Prytula, Executive Director of the Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy was emphatic when talking about how Warren “has dedicated himself to the pharmacy profession, not only in Canada but around the world. We are so pleased to honour Warren with the Pillar of Pharmacy award as a way of recognizing and thanking him for his service.” The Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy’s Pillar of Pharmacy
Award celebrates the achievements of an individual who has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the profession of pharmacy. CACHA Board, members, and volunteers are honoured to call him friend, colleague, and advisor.
Warren Meek is a generous and caring human being. He has been travelling to Africa on medical missions with CACHA, the Canada Africa Community Health Alliance since 2007. He has worked for the past 15 years on the remote island of Ukerewe in the middle of Lake Victoria a mere 3-4 hour ferry ride from Tanzania’s closest mainland city. Warren often travels ahead of the team, arriving a few days early to work with our local partners, making connections and finding medications at the best prices so that we can see as many patients
as possible. He visits friends he has made in Tanzania, offering friendship, mentorship, and experience. Many young people have appreciated his moral and financial support over the years.
CACHA medical caravans are divided into a number of stations ranging from medicine to ophthalmology to dental, HIV testing, and pharmacy.
Warren moves easily between stations often stopping to help an elderly person or a young mom with her baby. Being on medical caravan can be emotionally difficult, along with physically gruelling.
Seeing things that would break your heart, Warren is always there offering support to others with a knowing smile and a big bear hug.
We have made and lost a number of friends on Ukerewe Island. Last year we lost Mek a lovely pharmacy nurse who worked closely with Warren for many years. Bishop Lukanima, a retired Catholic Bishop was a mentor to both Warren and I offering advice. He became a good
friend and often invited us to his home where his nieces made us dinner with fruit salad that tasted like candy. Since his death, Warren and I have made it a routine to visit his gravesite ~ Bishop Lukanima has his own room inside the church in Kagunguli. Last year we manoeuvred ongoing construction, sneaking into the church tiptoeing over bags of cement, boards, and nails to share a prayer with our friend. Warren led prayers with our friend Daniel as he struggled in Nansio Hospital with late-stage complications of diabetes. We visited
Daniel’s mother after he died to pay our respects. She told us how honoured she was to have us visit and gave Warren a hen as a gift or possibly it was a rooster – but that is a story for another time. Warren is a man with many sides and for me one has always been as a holy
man for whom I have great respect. I would be remiss to not mention Warren’s theatrical side. One year he initiated a Flash Mob, you know the kind, where people break into song and dance in big European train stations. Picture this – a bunch of mzungus (white people) standing outside the sandy entrance to the health dispensary where the local people are patiently waiting to see the doctor. Ensemble, we break into singing ‘Doe a Deer, a female deer’, swaying in time to the music. The crowd was mesmerized (or possible stunned) by our display of musical talent.
Warren offers deep expertise in medication procurement and dispensing and is our most experienced pharmacist. He mentors participants, helping people to immediately feel welcome and part of the team. He offers a shoulder to cry on for those new to Ukerewe and those of us with years of experience.
In 2017 Warren brought the idea of using electronic medical records (EMR) for our medical caravan on Ukerewe Island. Remember it is a remote, mostly rural island in the middle of Lake Victoria. Access to both internet and electricity are shaky, coming and going randomly and for hours at a time. As lead of the Ukerewe mission, I was initially hesitant. I think I may have said something like “Absolutely No WAY! Let one of the other CACHA missions try it who are located on the mainland with much more access”. But Warren had a vision, and he was not to be dissuaded. He worked away with a number of young IT students to create a new program, the like of which had not yet been seen. He brought it to pilot for the first time in 2017 ~ yes, on Ukerewe Island.
Like the mail delivery he was not to be deterred through torrential downpours, sun so hot it could melt electric cords, sand, mud, no power, generators overheating, and bugs.
Overcoming all obstacles, he did it. Today we use EMR exclusively on Ukerewe medical caravans which has allowed ease of access for clinicians, simple tracking from station to
station, quick information flow to pharmacy, and the ability to easily access interesting and critical statistics. We are grateful to Warren for his brilliance, perseverance, and dedication to the people of Ukerewe Island. This is a feat that has not been matched.
People from around the globe continue to send their heartfelt congratulations for this well-deserved award.
CACHA members are delighted to celebrate Warren as the kind, caring, hardworking, wise, brilliant humanitarian that he is.
Warren, wewe ni rafiki wetu na kaka wetu. Tunasherehekea kazi nzuri yako. Unapenda watu wote ya Tanzania na wanampenda.
Written by Cathy Cleary, past Team Lead and Mentor of CACHA Ukerewe Island Medical Missions