Aad van Geldermalsen

Dr. Aad van Geldermalsen, M.D., Master Public Health and Tropical Medicine (º1954)

Key-area of expertise: Health Systems (First line and District services); Disease Control and Epidemiology (TB, Malaria, STI, HIV), Health Management Information Systems, and integrating these activities into a system based on PHC.

He was a Policy Advisor to the mid- and national level of the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) of Zimbabwe with the Health Sector Support Programme (HSSP) funded by the European Commission. He advised on the district strengthening component of the programme which included improving the management capacity of district and provincial health teams as well as the M&E system from the health centre level upwards. Designing and testing a system of comparative health service performance are part of his expertise.  He became manager of the Vital Health Sector Support Programme (VHSSP) and later, as director, introduced the PEPFAR funded Zimbabwe health information support programme.

Dr van Geldermalsen's main experience is in sub-Saharan countries, initially as (clinical) District Medical Officer, but progressively as advisor to provincial and national levels. His main activities were with the MoHCWs on long-term contracts, via the Dutch and German development co-operations. He was an advisor to disease control programmes of the MoHCW (Zimbabwe), with contributions to national programmes on malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS a.o. with short term consultancies to evaluate some of these programmes.
He managed and advised EU and American funded programmes related to health service support and organization.   Short-term consultancies ranged from NGOs on human resources management, to Parastatal Institutes on research database accessibility.
Advice, lecturing and coaching of MPH candidates of the Zimbabwean Masters in Public Health course as well as conducting operational (health systems- and epidemiological-) research were part of his duties during his 19 years in Zimbabwe.