Grace M. Chiudzu1, Adamson S. Muula2, Kondwani Kawaza3
- President of the Medical Association of Malawi (2022-2025)
- Vice President, Medical Association of Malawi (2025-) and Editor-in-Chief, Malawi Medical Journal
- President, Medical Association of Malawi (2025-)
The Medical Association of Malawi (MAM), founder and co-proprietor of the Malawi Medical Journal (MMJ) held its annual general meeting (AGM) on 13th September 2025 at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences’ Lilongwe Lower Campus. The AGM agenda included presentations, review and approval of reports, and the election of executive position office bearers. The newly elected members who will serve for the next three (3) years. Their names are as follows:
1. Dr Kondwani Kawaza- President
2. Prof. Adamson Muula- Vice President and Chair of Scientific Committee
3. Dr. Amos Nyaka- Secretary-General
4. Dr. Henry Mwakalinga- Vice Secretary-General
5. Dr. Agnes Moses- Treasurer
6. Dr. Anthony Chafunya- Chair, Finance and Administration Committee
7. Dr. Sekeleghe Kayuni-Chairperson, Marketing and Membership Committee
8. Dr. George Liomba (Jnr) – Chairperson, Information and Communication Committee
9. Dr. Jessie Mbamba- Representative, Southern Region
10. Dr. Phyela Mbeya- Representative, Northern Region
11. Northern Region Representative, vacant
Appendix 1: Presidential Speech by Dr Grace Mary Chiudzu at the Medical Association of Malawi Annual General Meeting held at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHES), Lilongwe Lower Campus, 13th September 2025
- MAM Board Trustee
- MAM Council Members
- Invited Guests
- The Presidents of affiliate health professional associations
- MAM Members and Colleagues
A very special welcome to MAM members and all eligible members at our fourth annual General meeting. Its 3 years ago since we came into office.
We were elected into office on 27th June 2022. The team comprised of
Dr Grace Mary Chiudzu – President
Dr Kondwani Kawaza – Vice President and Chairperson of Scientific Subcommittee
Dr Amos Nyaka – Secretary
Mr. David Chomba – Vice Secretary
Dr Agnes Moses – Treasurer
Chairpersons of Subcommittees
Dr Antony Chafunya – Finance and Administration
Dr Sekeleghe Kayuni – Membership and Marketing
Dr George Liomba Jnr – Information and Communication
Regional Representatives
Dr Henry Mwakalinga – North
Dr Jessie Mbamba – South
Dr Phyela Mbeya – Central
Prof Adamson Muula – Ex-Officio
Ladies’ and Gentlemen
During the term of our office, MAM
- Continued to be considered a key stakeholder by Ministry of Health, Medical Council of Malawi and other stakeholders. MAM members continue to be members of various technical working groups and medical council of Malawi. And MAM members have been involved in various task forces drafting policy documents
- To prompt matters of medical and scientific interest in Malawi, MAM held one scientific conference with a theme Health for All: aligning Health service delivery to the vision 2063.
MAM has also developed the curriculum for the medical council of Malawi for mentoring foreign trained doctors in Malawi hospitals. The mentorship will be done by various MAM members in the respective departments at a small token of appreciation. An MOU was already signed, to start with KCH.
- In building partnerships with various stakeholders, we had a joint conference with Malawi Law Society and ICAM. The joint conferences is planned to continue as to look at issues of common ground. The next one planned will look at the litigation which is becoming a threat to provision of clinical care.
- To guide the operations of the association, we embarked on a journey to develop a strategic plan for 2023 to 2028 with four strategic goals:
- To be a leader in promoting scientific research and clinical care in the country
- To build partnerships with various stakeholders
- To raise awareness and visibility of MAM
- To build the operational capacity of MAM
However, due to various challenges, the development of the strategic plans has not come to conclusion.
- I am happy to report we had a successful Board of trustee meeting in January 2024 where Dr Gertrude Chapotera was elected as Chairperson and Dr Douglas Lungu as Vice Chairperson. There other members are Dr Gertrude Mateyo and Dr Godfrey Kangaude.
During the period in questions, we also encountered a significant number of challenges some
- The lack of full participation from some members of the council (executive) committee continues to threaten the existence of MAM. After the initial wave of activity during the first year, all subcommittees went into dormancy! We have failed to organise combined Scientific conference and AGM for the 2 consecutive years.
- This is not new. I previously stressed it when we were being ushered into office at the AGM of June 2022. And during that time, I highlighted that MAM would go back to ICU before it gets discharged from the ward if the trend continued! Alas, here we are!!!!
- Reduced membership of paid up members. I guess members don’t see the value of being a member for MAM.
- MAM has not updated its registration status with the registrar of companies to continue its existence as required by law.
- We still don’t have a patron. It was previously resolved we maintain the Head of State as Patron. However, we have not been able to get a response despite constant reminders
- Finances: income has largerly been on members contributions. With dwindling figures of the membership, the income is also very low making it not able to meet the necessary expenses for the part time human resource – MAM is essentially Bankrupt. It cannot even pay its own 1 parttime secretary
- Challenges in getting feedback from the Trustees despite several follow-ups and constant reminders
As I leave office, I would like to thank everyone thus far for the support. I wish the incoming team all the best and make MAM great again. It can be done. Thank you.
Appendix 2: Presidential Speech by Dr Kondwani Kawaza at the Medical Association of Malawi Annual General Meeting held at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHES), Lilongwe Lowe Campus, 13th September 2025
The Trustees of MAM present,
Representative of the Ministry of Health present,
The CEO of Medical Council of Malawi
Representatives of other Associations or Organizations here present
The out-going President of MAM,
The Out-going Executive Members of MAM,
The Newly Elected MAM Vice President, and Effective today, President-Elect of MAM
All Newly Elected MAM Executive Members
All members of MAM here present
Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen
All Protocol observed.
Colleagues. Recently, over two weeks ago, we lost one of the senior members in the profession, and past Trustee of our Association. Before I start I would like to propose that members observe a 1 minute of silence in honour of the late Professor George Liomba.
I am greatly honored and humbled to stand before you, and deliver this speech, as the new President of the Medical Association of Malawi (MAM), deemed elected as per Article 9/5/b of the Constitution of Medical Association of Malawi (MAM) and on behalf of the New Executive Committee of MAM, which includes continuing executive members, who are deemed re-elected, as per Article 8/4 of the MAM constitution; and have accepted to continue carrying the burden of leadership and service in the MAM Executive Committee.
I and my colleagues; the team that you are now entrusting with guiding the affairs of MAM, for the next three years, feel extremely honoured to accept the responsibility that you are now giving us. We are thankful, for the trust that you have placed in our team, to serve, just like others before us have done.
Let me begin by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the Out-going MAM President, Dr Grace Mary Chiudzu, and her Executive Committee, for having ably and resiliently steered the ship for the past six years, when she served a term, under the old constitution, and a further three-year term under the current constitution.
We all admired Dr Grace Chiudzu’s firm, inclusive, responsible, visionary and effetive leadership, which came, just at the right time, as the country and the profession were going through massive challenges, including, political upheavals, economic meltdowns, epidemics, pandemics, and natural disasters.
Through all these challenges, Dr Chiudzu and her team managed to steer the ship; and now we can be proud to have an organization that has survived, against the odds, and is ready to continue providing leadership not only to the professionals regulated through the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (MDPA), but also to the Health Professions in general.
May I humbly ask all of us to stand and give an applause to Dr Grace Chiudzu and her out-going Executive Committee.
To all of you, leaders who have provided leadership to MAM before us, and to all of you members, who have stayed with MAM throughout the challenging times, and whose participation, dedication and tireless service to MAM has never wavered, I say thank you. Thank you for building and nurturing an organization with a strong foundation, through very challenging times.
Colleagues, our team will not take the responsibility placed on our shoulders today, lightly. You will be aware that though MAM has survived this far, as an organization, and the Medical and Dental profession, continue to face unprecedented challenges, as individual members and as a professional collective.
Our profession is going through numerous challenges. The country is still behind in terms of training of health care caders. Those few, who are trained, go through struggles to get recruited
Those who get recruited, lack resources for practising their trade, for research, and for Continuing
Professional Development. Therefore our input and effort, as a contribution to impact on the health of our people may not be optimum that all of us desire.
Added to this may be our inherent and lingering weaknesses as a pofessional collective.
The profession remains too fragmented and uncoordinated to exert the influence and yield the results that all of us desire. Our Associations are still too lame to set, own, defend and maintain own professional standards. Working conditions remain unconducive for effective performance and quality service delivery; sometimes even injurious to our already sick public. This is a situation that as a profession, we cannot continue to pretend to be proud of and to keep silent about.
In our country, the Medical and Dental professional is one of the most isolated of those in the professions. Where most of our challenges may be common with the rest of the country’s professions, we sometimes choose to isolate ourselves; to close ourselves in our own cubicle; our struggles and challenges mostly unseen by the rest of the public, while hoping that the rest of the public would find solutions for everyone, including our own. Within our own larger profession, even as we know, that our issues may be common, we further prefer to partition ourselves into smaller silos, which operate alone, without a unified goal; and without an overall coordinating and representative entity. As a result, collective professional autonomy is watered down, and the self-regulatory component of the profession is no longer found to be of much weight for the public trust. Internal processes of the statutory professional bodies are not fully supported, and allowed to move towards disintegration.
At the moment, the majority of the Medical Practitioner community are constructively outside professional bodies. Over 90% of medical and dental practitioners registered with Medical Council of Malawi are not in good standing with MAM, which is, in my view, according to the the spirit of the Medical Practitioners and Dentists’ Act (MPDA), the statutory collective body of the practitioners operating under the MPDA.
Such non-cohesion of the practitioners under the MPDA, has the effect of limiting the resource, capacity and image of the professional collective, and its authority and means to perform the mandate of developing, capacitating, and supporting guideline and practice standards among peers. And temptations to materiality, dishonesty, lack of integrity in pratice become appealing. In some cases physical and mental breakdown, especially for junior and sometimes unsupported private and public practitioners are allowed to reign.
Colleagues, we are aware that as practitioners, we are accountable to our patients, then to our peers and ultimately to the wider public. The current set-up, emphasizes accountability to patient, which is a mandate, and accountability to the public, which is also most paramount. However, as long as the practitioner is not interactive with and accountable to his/her peers, then he/she ceases to be called a professional in the first place.
For, what is it, to be a professional?
It is, loosely, to be openly qualified in one’s trade; to be openly practising one’s trade, and to be openly a part of a collective of that trade; thus subjecting one-self in the first instance to one’s teachers, in the second instance, to peer scrutiny, in the third instance to client scrutiny and in the fourth, and most importantly, to public scrutiny. Overlapping all these is the individual’s and the collective’s desire and ability for continuous learning.
To be a professional is to place one-self within a collective and demonstrate conformity to the collectively set technical and ethical standards. For a profession, must be a collective of skilled practitioners with capacity for self-perpetuation, continuous self-development, and continuous self-regulation, indeed all in pursuit of maximum benefit to the private and public clientele.
Sadly, today, there are practitioners who may be inclined to think that they can remain professionals, without belonging to the collective, and therefore to the profession. And professional bodies which continue to struggle to guide the practitioner and accommodate his/her needs. We have a duty, colleagues, to inform each other and bring these issues to light, and make our associations, attractive and participatory. This is the only way that we are going to be better contributing to improved delivery and improved outcomes.
Colleagues, as we move forward, let as come together, stand up. Let our efforts be seen and our voices be heard. Let us continue asking the questions about and at the same time provide responses to our relevance.
Globally;
- How are we strategizing to be players towards attainment of SDGs, particularly those that have a direct bearing on health?
- How do we tap into international resources and instruments to prop up our members and the health of our public?
- How do we relate with organizations of similar nature to the benefit of our membership and our public?
Nationally;
- How do we as a profession seek to align ourselves with VISION 2063?
- What activities are we going to line up, in contribution to the MIP-1; the 10 year Implementation Plan?
- Regarding the practice of our own profession;
- What will be the contribution of MAM, to care, teaching and training, as well as research?
- What will be our contribution to dealing with disasters and emerging health problems?
- How will we promote compassion, integrity, and a relentless pursuit of knowledge, among practitioners?
- How will we continue building public trust in the Medical and Dental Professions in Malawi?
- How will we influence policy that protects not only our patients, but also providers, and ensure that quality care is not a privilege but a right for all?
Concerning regulation, I have a few thoughts to bring forward;
The regulatory framework for the Medical Profession in Malawi, is that of professional self-regulation, with public oversight. The principle of professional self-regulation demands that practitioners are accountable to their peers in the profession, as I have stated above, through a designated functional Professional Body. Implicit in the MPDA is the requirement for practitioners to be in good standing with their profession. Also implicit in the Act is the designation of our MAM as the professional body mandated with the role of coordination of the professionals and the professions for practitioners registrable with MCM. The aspect of self-regulation, is exercised by MAM, as per the Act, through the authority to Elect Council, prescribed in Part II, section 4/1/eof the MDPA.
Professional regulation therefore, as we all know, is an internal process of the profession, rather than an external influence! It is rather ‘the Profession,’ that institutes, drives and enforces regulation of their own collective, backed by public participation and state legislation. Anything outside of this, dis-empowers, and essentially stifles the competence of the professional collective, and ultimately kills the profession itself.
Therefore, colleagues, we have no choice but to work to see MAM being strengthened; and this must be our desire, and the desire of the Medical Council, the State and the Public.
As MAM we have, by the spirit of the law, an obligation to ourselves and to the profession to ensure that MAM self-perpetuates as a viable and functional entity, without which the profession ceases from capacity to deliver safe and quality service to the public. Our organization needs, therefore, to coordinate with MCM, through the provisions of the MPDA, and the Code of Ethics and Professional Standards, to bring the practitioners together, and to mould them into a cohesive and effective engine for impactful health care delivery.
Colleagues, I was asking questions above. These questions and others, are going to be answered, in the next three years, and for years to come, by the MAM leadership that has been elected today, and leaderships yet to come; by the MAM membership who are are today in this room; by the MAM membership today not present; and those who are not yet, as we speak, members of MAM.
That being said, we all may agree that during the next three-year leadership phase, we should like to see the following:
- MAM has significantly increased its annual paid up membership
- MAM has significantly improved revenue from membership
- MAM visibility has been improved, locally, nationally and internationally.
- Improved participation of MAM in matters and decisions of public interest
- Improved ownership of health professional Associations by member practitioners.
- Improved ownership by MAM and other associations, of health care guidelines and standards.
MAM leadership has always believed that it is the duty of every health care professional to see the profession growing and being strengthened, and to see the profession playing its rightful role in national development. Let us all together, form that team that will make MAM continue growing and leading the health care professions registered under the MDPA. And let us all together, work to ensure that the future of health care, is shaped not by out-siders, but by ourselves as Doctors, Dentists, Clinical Officers, Allied Health Professionals, Researchers, Educators, Managers and as Healthcare Advocates and Leaders of the Professions.
Once again, I thank the outgoing President and the outgoing MAM Executive for steering the ship during a most difficult period, and the huge amount of work that went into consolidating MAM as an institution.
I wish also to congratulate my colleagues who have been elected here and wish the team success as they accept and take on the challenge of leading MAM.
May God bless MAM
May God bless the Health Care Professions
May God bless Malawi