Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

Skills Workshop

This year our laboratory team helped organise a Skills Workshop for the graduate laboratory scientists working in health centres and hospitals in southern Ethiopia. The programme was ably supported by the Awassa College laboratory department teachers. 32 participants, some travelling for 4 days to reach the workshop, thoroughly enjoyed practical skills training and opportunity to share experiences with colleagues from different parts of the country as well as with the trainers.

CME for graduate HOs

Continuing Medical Education programme for the graduate HOs initiated by our link and sponsored with support from the British Embassy in Addis and THET has gone from strength to strength this year. In this programme we have continued to organise skills workshop in emergency skills, supporting hospital attachment for the HOs to local hospital with the hospital specialists and providing all the participating health centres with a set of essential text books. Until this year this programme was limited to the HOs from only Sidama and Gedeo zones but from this year this has been extended to include HOs from all parts of southern Ethiopia (SNNPR).

CME workshop for the HOs in Arbaminch included HOs from SNNPR who have not previously attended any skills workshop. All of us felt this was one of the best workshop we have done so far for the HOs. Not only 34 HOs attended, some travelling nearly 1000km to get there, but also all of them thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. Specialists from Arbaminch hospital were extremely supportive of this workshop. As a good will gesture our link donated the hospital with some essential equipment, instruments and two oxygen concentrators. We have also agreed to try to support this hospital with essential items as needed.

CME stake holders meeting in Addis

Following our four years experience in needs assessment and organising CME in SNNPR, Dr Aberra and I felt strongly that this programme should be considered for expansion not only within SNNPR but in the rest of the country.

I organised in November ‘05 with support from Dr Aberra, a national stakeholders meeting in Addis for the CME programme. We invited at the health ministry representatives from WHO Ethiopia office, from the Carter centre, from the British Embassy, from THET, stakeholders in the new CME programmes in Gondar and Mekele and trainers from Addis University. The meeting turned out to be extremely successful. Role of health officers in delivering health care in Ethiopia is vital. In this meeting, the importance of CME programmes initiated by our link for the HOs now has been fully recognised by all concerned to be the way forward. A national task force was formed with a view to developing nationwide programme for CME for HOs in rest of the country.

WHO and essential and emergency surgical skills

Following my invitation at the end of 2004 (see last year’s annual report) head of essential skills of WHO in Geneva travelled to southern Ethiopia with me in February 05. We visited Dilla and Yirgalem Hospital, health centres in Gedeo and Sidama zone as well as having meetings with Awassa College and SNNPR Health Bureau to discuss way forward in developing essential skills training for HOs with support from WHO. Following this visit, WHO has now undertaken to support 4 health centres and a rural hospital in SNNPR and 5 health centres in Amahara region with further training of HOs, anaesthetic and theatre nurses and equipping these first referral level facilities with appropriate equipment and instruments.

In December ‘05 at the first Global Initiative for Essential and Emergency Skills conference in Geneva, I presented our links experience with the CME programme in Ethiopia with the first referral level health workers (with support from our Link collaborators in Addis via satellite link). Consensus document from this conference is expected to recognise for the very first time that essential and emergency surgical skills at the first referral level is a major public health issue in resource poor settings and if not addressed maternal and child mortality rates will remain unacceptably high.