{"id":1413,"date":"2022-09-21T13:31:23","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T04:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/?p=1413"},"modified":"2022-09-22T18:38:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T09:08:41","slug":"lourenco-camnahas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/2022\/09\/21\/lourenco-camnahas\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning for the greater good"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nA pragmatic academic and practitioner with more than 25 years\u2019 experience in leading health administrative systems, Dr Louren\u00e7o Camnahas (BHlthSc \u201902, MHlthAdmin \u201908, PhD \u201920) has built his career around the needs of his country \u2013 which have changed and evolved dramatically since the height of Timor-Leste\u2019s struggle for independence from Indonesia, which led to the UN resolution in 1999 and the creation of a new sovereign state in May 2002.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Camnahas and his late wife, who sadly passed away while on holiday in Melbourne in 2019, had been involved with the movement from the beginning after first meeting while studying nursing in Makassar, Celebes (now Sulawesi, Indonesia).<\/p>\n

\u201cI started nursing, but it was not for me,\u201d said Dr Camnahas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI then moved to public health but didn\u2019t finish my degree before the Timor struggles brought me back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Camnahas knew what a huge task lied ahead in rebuilding a country\u2019s healthcare system. While foreign aid can support primary care, his vision has always been to develop management, processes and governance to make sure health is sustainable and locals can become independent managers of their healthcare in partnership with others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really was clandestine involvement to begin with, I was focused on planning with a team in our health sector called Group 9 \u2013 providing medical aid support while the movement grew,\u201d Dr Camnahas said.<\/p>\n

Towards 1999, this work intensified.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter independence was declared, I became a national official for UNICEF and appointed a local consultant in Timor-Leste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keen to restart his learning journey and acquire the skills needed to give Timor-Leste\u2019s health system the best chance of succeeding, Dr Camnahas successfully applied for and won an Australia Awards scholarship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI originally planned to go to QUT (Queensland University of Technology), but first went to Wollongong in 2001 for English lessons,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there, I ended up attending Adelaide for an international public health conference, just by chance, for three days as a representative for Timor-Leste\u2019s Vice-Minister for Health who could not make it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were taken around all three South Australian unis and I fell in love with the location of Flinders, so although I\u2019d already nominated QUT, I asked to change!<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the first Timor-Leste student to go to Flinders Uni.\u201d<\/p>\n

After completing his Bachelor of Health Sciences in 2005, Dr Camnahas returned to Timor-Leste with the knowledge he had been seeking to begin establishing the health sector, including the training of much needed health workers in priority sectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role was within the National Agency of Health Sciences in Timor-Leste,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI led nursing, midwifery and allied health programs which were also backed by WHO, the UN, UNICEF and a number of other NGOs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2008, Dr Camnahas wanted to specialise his skillset, choosing his academic pathway with his country\u2019s clear developmental goals in mind, by returning to Adelaide and undertaking his Master of Health Services Management (Health Administration) at Flinders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I returned home from my masters in 2009, I became an advisor for Health Alliance International in Dili (capital of Timor-Leste), then worked at the Ministry of Health in 2011-12, before then moving to the World Bank to establish a new project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project (National Health Sector Strategic Plan Support Project) I led covered the whole team, from procurement of medical supplies, to helping community health centres, to managing around 30 international advisers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, adding another feather to his cap, Dr Camnahas\u2019 PhD in pharmaceutical supply chain modelling was accepted and he graduated in 2020. His primary supervisor was Emeritus Prof Eileen Willis<\/a> and another was, Dr Jessie Shipman<\/a>, both in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI adjusted all of my subjects to suit the needs of my country and make a difference \u2013 like picking something others aren\u2019t doing to bring it back and fit in the needs of the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy late wife was a strong advocate for me to take the PhD \u2013 I was happy just busy working at the World Bank running my major health project!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of his time, Dr Camnahas may have set a trend in health specialisations needing to be flexible and cover niche areas, as not all can fit into a neat box.<\/p>\n

Currently working at St John of God, Dili, Dr Camnahas is focused on three development areas \u2013 health care standards and accreditation, education and training for nursing and midwifery, and pathology services.<\/p>\n

There is only one national hospital in Timor-Leste, Guido Valadares, so the efforts in these areas are imperative for students to achieve competency and therefore provide the services in their area.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Flinders graduate, I am most proud of finishing my PhD and being able to work on, and compete with, the same level in the World Bank as people from developed countries,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLife expectancy in Timor-Leste was 58, so we have quite a young population currently, but I hope in the next 25-30 years with the right education we will see that grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired to further your skills and create positive change in your community? Explore a range of postgraduate opportunities in Health Sciences at Flinders University.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pragmatic academic and practitioner with more than 25 years\u2019 experience in leading health administrative systems, Dr Louren\u00e7o Camnahas (BHlthSc \u201902, MHlthAdmin \u201908, PhD \u201920) has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4958,"featured_media":1414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[825,829,2075,3006,3983],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-business-government-and-law","category-college-of-nursing-and-health-sciences","category-study-health","category-higherdegreeresearch","category-international"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4958"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}