Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

Venue: Education Centre, Nevill Hall Hospital

Summary: Matters arising, Community Link, NHS Links, Open discussion with Hawassa colleagues,

Present

Peter Sampson (Chair), Yifru Berhan (Hawassa), Tadesse Anteneh (Hawassa), Million Teshome (Hawassa), Pam Powell, Biku Ghosh, Vishnu Chandrabalan, Peter Smith, Vivek Goel, Jo Keen, Melrose East, Dave Williams, Lynne Jones, Bob Williams, Liz Waters, Carole Garrick

Apologies

Dave Sanders, Grace Thomas, Ian Mackie, Alison Griffiths, Jo Weiner, Alan Terry, Sandy Holt Wilson

The meeting commenced by extending a warm welcome to our colleagues and friends from Ethiopia – Dr Yifru, Dean of Hwassa Medical Faculty, Dr Tadesse, Head of Hwassa College of Health sciences and Dr Million, Gynaecologist and obstetrician.

Minutes of the last meeting

The minutes were agreed as correct

Matters arising

14 oxygen concentrators have now been received and are in Hawassa with Dr Yifru.

Peter Sampson is still negotiating a means of raising staff awareness of subscribing to the link via their payroll.

A meeting of the subgroup has taken place and Biku has written to the four health centres identified to be raised to exemplar standard.

Biku has 12 microscopes donated by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Four more oxygen concentrators are to be needed for the health centres

Vishnu is looking at computers for the health centres via www.computeraid.org. They will supply the computers and send to Addis. The link will have to fund them from here.

Community Link

The Bryn y Cwm Link continues to grow and has developed link with Yirgacheffe. They will have a stall in St Mary’s Church Hall, Abergavenny on Saturday 30th June 11-4pm. The group intend to visit Yirgacheffe in the autumn. The community link, whilst in its early stages, is progressing well. They are intent on support with improving structural facilities at the Yirgacheffe health centre as well as developing wider links to include schools, faiths, water supply, fair-trade councils etc.

The film Black Gold is due to be shown at the Abergavenny Food Festival. Some members of the link had recently seen the film at Hay on Wye Literature Festival. It clearly demonstrates the exploitation of the coffee growers of. Southern Ethiopia and it is recommended viewing.

NHS Links

The first Welsh Assembly Government sponsored ‘Wales for Africa’ Conference will take place in Cardiff on Friday June 25th. Several members of the link will be taking part. Dr Yifru and Biku will make presentations. Poster presentations have been prepared by Vishnu, Carole and Melrose

July 9th Welsh group is taking the lead in UK strategy on Global Health, Biku will attend the workshop with Sally Venn. Monday June 25th Dr Yifru had a feature published in the Western Mail entitled, ‘Building up a Healthy Link between Gwent and Ethiopia’.

Open discussion with Hawassa Colleagues

An opportunity was provide for a discussion with colleagues from Ethiopia. Dr Tadesse began by stating how positive he felt about the Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Link. He outlined the work that the link had achieved and how it had progressed over the years and thanked Biku for his support and dedication. He was very optimistic for the future of the link as it continued to grow and was particularly pleased with the recent involvement of Cardiff University. He welcomed future plans to develop four Health Centres particularly in respect of student training but also for its benefits it will have for the community.

Dr Million was sure this work would encourage rural women to attend the health centres and help to provide them with quality care.

Dr Yifru was also very supportive of developing the four health centres in the region, as this would provide students with excellent training.

The aim of the Ethiopian government is to develop the health centres into first line hospitals. It is their intention to upgrade 650 existing health centres to hospital level.

There is work currently being undertaken by the Safe hands for Mothers Organisation training health extension workers in the villages and our link is in dialogue with them to join up efforts.

It was agreed that education in infection control needed to play a large part of any training with the staff in the health centres particularly if more invasive procedures were expected to be performed there.

Vishnu has explored how e- learning could effectively be used in the health centres. It is the plan to set up a computer in each of the health centres. It is very hard and expensive to get books in Ethiopia but educational materials on CD would provide staff and students with updated information.

The possibility for supplying schools in the region with computers was also explored and Dr Tadesse thought this would be an excellent idea. Intel computers are provided cheaply for use in schools and Canonical provide IT equipment for schools in Africa. It was also noted that science equipment was badly needed in the schools.

It was generally felt that involving the community to help develop the health centres was a good idea as people are very keen to get involved. By working in partnership with the community, the project is much more likely to be successful.

The first visit of the community group should be to meet with the local people to establish what their needs and problems are and then to identify how best they can be met. It has already been established that maintenance of equipment is a problem. The community group may need to identify a plumber, electrician etc. for help in the future.

A clear message was to meet and consult with the people and the community leaders and work in partnership with them. They must be able to own the projects. Also, be aware of local customs.

Dr Tadesse was anxious that the Hwassa hospital continued to be supported. Some of the equipment was not working as there continued to be problems with installation and maintenance.

Biku explained that the link was a small one but it will continue to provide support best it can. Already this year 8 oxygen concentrators and obstetric instruments has been supplied to Hwassa hospital following request from them.

Peter thanked everyone for their contributions in what had been a full and open discussion. A lot of valuable learning points had been identified on all sides.

AOB

An email report had been received from Cardiff University outlining their recent visit.

Asoka Weerakkody is retiring on Friday 29th June. He has been an excellent trainer and the link committee wanted to thank him for his support and wish him a very happy retirement. Biku has sent him a card and will speak to him on behalf of the link.

Date and Agenda of next meeting

Monday, September 10th 2007, Education Centre NHH.

Agenda

• Apologies
• Minutes of the last meeting
• Matters arising
• Visits to Ethiopia in October/November
• Monitoring and evaluation of link activities – Sally Venn
• Any other business
• Date of next meeting