Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

Venue: Education Centre, Nevill Hall Hospital

Present
Peter Samson (Chair), Biku Ghosh, Lynn Jones, Sandy Holt-Wilson, Peter Smith, Alan Terry, Pam Powell, Sally Venn, Melrose East, Grace Thomas

Apologies
Stephen Hunter, John Saunders, Wendy Warren, Carole Garrick, Robert Williams, Prof Houston, Peter Dale, Vivek Goel, Jo Keen, David Williams, Dave Saunders

Matters Arising
A further 8 oxygen concentrators have been sent to Ethiopia for distribution to the four health centres.

Raising funds through payroll giving is still being investigated by Peter. HR has now written to the Trust Executive Group. There is some concern regarding promoting one charity.

Biku has 12 microscopes to go to Ethiopia. 2 were taken back with the Ethiopian visitors. The others are being checked for their suitability for the hospital, health centres and schools.

Vishnu has arranged purchase of 10 Pentium 4 computers with printers etc from ‘computer aid’ for the links support to the health centres. Total cost with shipping is £2,500. Teaching materials are requested for the computers.

On September 15th/16th Abergavenny Food Festival is taking place. On Friday evening September 14th, the film Black Gold is being shown. There will also be a Fair Trade stall and the community link will have a stall in Trinity Church Hall.
WAG ‘Wales for Africa’ Conference was a success. A steering committee has been set up for WAG with the focus on working with THET to promote and set up links, develop excellence in links and develop good practice. A proposal has been sent to the CMO who is very supportive, particularly working closely with the NHS. Next meeting is Sept 20th.
UK Strategy and Global Health- Gordon Brown is supporting 7 African countries including Ethiopia. 3 meetings have taken place to date looking at how the UK Government can best take this forward. Both THET and Dfid are involved.

The visitors from Ethiopia were extremely impressed with the work that the link is doing and in particular the extension of links into the community.
Biku informed the group that Dr Tadesse is no longer Head of Hwassa College, Dr Yiffru has taken his place. Dr Tizaru is now Dean of College.

Visit to Ethiopia in October
The group will be a larger one than usual with 15 people leaving UK October 26th and returning on November 10th. Work to be undertaken includes-

• Midwifery skills group led by Carole Garrick and Melrose East and supported by Jane Herve, Head of Midwifery Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust and Robyn Phillips, Midwifery Advisor at Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. Lynn Jones, student midwife at University of Glamorgan will be assisting the group.
• CME programme with Biku, Vishnu and Kyle, specialist in A&E.
• Teaching medical students in Hwassa medical school.
• Two anaesthetists, Paul Clyburm from Cardiff and Gill Curtis from Royal Gwent have worked for a group named Mothers of Africa. They are hoping to join the above group for the first week.
• Vishnu will also be help setting up the computers in the health centres.
• Supporting 4 identified Health Centres with essential items including Oxygen concentrators, surgical and obstetric equipment, computers and discussing training and resource needs etc.
• 5 members of the community link will also be travelling with the above group. Alan has set out some main aims and objectives. They will be meeting with key personnel in the community in Yirgacheffe and working with them to identify their needs and prioritise what can be done. They will also take photographs to help to publicise the link and their work in order to expand the group.

Alan said that the community link would like to thank Biku for creating the opportunity for this visit with the health link.
Sandy was asked about the possibility of undertaking ophthalmic training for these health centre staff. The Rotary Club has supported Sandy in the past with the Ophthalmic Hospital and training personnel. It is envisaged that staff at the 4 Health Centres will be trained in ophthalmic surgery and this could be provided, together with equipment, via ORBIS. Sandy is happy to discuss this issue with Dr Joseph who is currently teaching at the Hwassa hospital.

Monitoring and evaluation of link activities – Sally Venn
Sally attended a workshop run by THET in July in Brighton. It was identified that both monitoring and evaluation is an underdeveloped area by links.
How do we know if links make a difference? Only evidence available is anecdotal. How is the work that is being undertaken by links being monitored and measured? These are areas that links are going to have to develop, identifying the aims of our work and measuring the effects. A steering group should be set up to look at this. We need to be able to demonstrate benefits on both sides- partnership working. This could be done using reflective diaries. Sally will work with Alan on developing a form that the link could use on each visit.