There are only a few people you meet who only want the best for you, with no ulterior motive, just pure good energy. Dr. Lumbwe was one of them.

I met him before I even understood what diabetes meant. I was five years old, newly diagnosed, and my family was navigating a condition that Zambia at the time was simply not set up to handle. The system was built for infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, not for lifelong conditions that require daily management and long-term thinking. Zambia was not built for this kind of disease, and decades later, we still are not.

He saw me anyway.

He did not just see a diagnosis. He saw a life that needed to be understood, guided, and protected over decades. That is where this story becomes bigger than one man, because while Dr. Lumbwe was ahead of his time, the system around him was not.

Major General Dr Chishimba Mukonde Lumbwe was not just a presidential physician. He was one of the very few endocrinologists Zambia has had over the years. At a time when most of Africa’s health focus remained on infectious disease control, he chose to specialise in diabetes and endocrinology and undertook further training in the United Kingdom. He returned to Zambia and worked within a space that barely existed.

Non-communicable diseases now account for an estimated 29-32% of all deaths in Zambia. Across Africa, they are rising rapidly and are projected to become the leading cause of death by 2030. Diabetes alone is increasing fast, with estimates suggesting a 134% increase in cases across Africa by 2045. Yet the number of specialists has not kept pace. Zambia still has only a handful of endocrinologists. This is the reality Dr. Lumbwe was working in over 30 years ago, and remains the reality we face today.

My father met him in the 1990s on a golf course in Lusaka, and that chance meeting changed the course of my life. My diagnosis had been missed in the United Kingdom. It was Dr. Lumbwe who recognised the symptoms and advised my family to seek care in South Africa where the facilities existed. That level of clarity was rare then, and it remains rare now. Diabetes is not always obvious or urgent in the way infectious diseases present. It requires an understanding of patterns and long-term management. Many general practitioners still miss it, and many systems do not prioritise it.

For over 30 years, he looked after me, and I am one of many. I have received message after message from families he helped. Parents say he saved their child’s life. Sisters say he recognised symptoms no one else did. Patients trusted him because he never over-prescribed, never complicated treatment unnecessarily, and never treated medicine as a transaction. He treated it as a responsibility.

This is where his work connects directly to today’s wellness conversation. We now speak openly about lifestyle, fitness, and nutrition, but Dr. Lumbwe was already emphasising these principles decades ago. He consistently encouraged physical activity, discouraged excessive refined foods and sugars, and spoke about prevention in a system that was still largely reactive.

He understood something critical. Africa was changing. Urbanisation was increasing, lifestyles were becoming more sedentary, and processed foods were becoming more accessible. He recognised where this would lead and positioned himself in a field that very few were paying attention to. Today, we are living in the outcome of that shift.

In Zambia, rising rates of hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease, and obesity now sit alongside persistent infectious diseases. We are dealing with a double burden of disease, yet our systems, training, and public awareness are still catching up.

He did not only treat patients. He built awareness. He pioneered the Diabetes Association of Zambia and served as its patron. He wrote a diabetes education book in local languages and made it accessible.

In 2019, he invited me to speak at a reknowned endocrinology conference (ECSACOP) in Livingstone. It was my first invited speaking engagement, and I was the only patient in a room full of medical professionals. What stood out most was how little the lived experience of diabetes was understood. Years later, I experienced the same gap at a Diabetes Association AGM.

We have medical knowledge, but we do not always have patient understanding. Dr. Lumbwe bridged both. He believed in me long before I built a platform around diabetes. He was proud that I had managed more than 30 years of living with the condition, and in many ways, my work today exists because of the foundation he helped create.

We cannot rely on exceptional individuals to carry systemic gaps. We cannot wait for another Dr. Lumbwe to emerge and quietly hold everything together. The rise in non-communicable diseases in Zambia is not a future problem. It is already here. What we need now is scale. We need more specialists, earlier diagnosis, and public education that resonates. We need workplace wellness programmes that go beyond surface-level messaging, community-level screening, and cultural conversations that move from stigma to understanding. Most importantly, we need to take prevention as seriously as treatment. People are being diagnosed late, complications are increasing, families are carrying long-term care burdens, and health systems are being stretched in ways they were not designed to handle.

Dr. Lumbwe saw this coming. He worked through it with consistency, humility, and purpose. As we reflect on his passing, the question is not only what he did, but what we will do with what he showed us. The question is how will we build the systems he spent a lifetime compensating for?

On behalf of all the diabetics out there, the families he has helped keep whole, the Diabetes Association of Zambia, and all the communities he served, we salute him and remain deeply grateful for his service. He surely is being received in glory by the Almighty, may his soul rest in eternal peace.

Kaajal Vaghela is a sportswear designer and diabetes wellness consultant with over three decades of lived experience managing Type 1 diabetes. Having previously served as Chairperson of the Lusaka branch of the Diabetes Association of Zambia, she remains a passionate advocate for breaking down myths and building awareness about diabetes. For more personalised coaching or corporate wellness workshops, visit: www.kaajalvaghela.com and for any feedback: [email protected])