Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

Continuing Medical Education (CME) is a relatively new concept for most parts of the developing world. Until recently, there were no such programmes in Ethiopia. The CME programmes initiated by the Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link are the first of their kind in Ethiopia.

Health Officers and Professional Isolation

Health Officers working in remote health centres face extremely difficult professional situations. He/She is very often the only medically qualified person responsible for the health of a large (often, over a hundred-thousand), mainly rural and remote population. They work in poorly equipped health centres that often lack basic medical equipment such as obstetric kits, essential instruments and medicines. There are no doctors in any of the health centres. Health centres are often over 100 kilometres away from the nearest hospital, which can only be reached by poor roads. Ambulance do not exist and private transport is often too expensive for most people. The professional isolation of these health officers is compounded by the lack of medical textbooks or any other means of keeping up to date with current medical advances. They have no opportunity to discuss professional problems with other colleagues. These inexperienced graduates work for low pay, unsupervised and without opportunity for further training or professional development. Morale is very low and staff turnover is very high.

The CME Programme for Health Officers

Following a needs assessment of the all HOs in the Gedeo zone, a pilot Continuing Medical Education workshop in emergency surgery, obstetrics and paediatrics was conducted in Dilla in 2002. Following its tremendous success, a CME programme for all Health officers in the Gedeo and Siddamo zones, serving a population of over 2 million, was started. The Health Officers were given the opportunity to attend two skills workshops per year in emergency and essential skills in surgery, trauma, obstetrics and paediatrics. The link also supported all participating Health Officers to be attached to their local hospital for at least one week every year where they had opportunity to work under the supervision of the local specialists. All participating health centres were provided with a set of essential medical text books in medicine, surgery, obstetrics and paediatrics.

Expansion of the CME Programme

Since then the CME programme has been extended to all the Health Officers working in the Southern Region Nations and Nationalities Republic (SNNPR) serving a population of nearly 16 million people. Since 2003 the CME programme has also been supported by funds from the Small Grants scheme of the British Embassy in Ethiopia. Following the success of this CME programme in Southern Ethiopia, similar programmes have been started in other parts of the country since last year.