Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

Two teams from the Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health link and the Abergavenny - Yirgachaffe Community link have returned after a very productive 2 weeks (Oct/Nov) in Southern Ethiopia. This visit marked the start of the Exemplar Health Centres project as well as the establishment of the community link. We also conducted skills workshops for 27 health officers and 48 nurses/midwives.

75 front-line health professionals working in remote health centres and hospitals attended the emergency skills workshops.

27 Health Officers took part in a five-day skills workshop on trauma, acute surgical and obstetric problems.

48 Midwives attended four-day skills workshop on emergency obstetric care and teaching techniques.

Supporting Exemplar teaching health centres

The link donated surgical and obstetric instruments and equipment, laboratory equipment and disposable items to the Yirgacheffe, Wondo-Genet, Alaba and Yirgalem health centres. In addition, the first three health centres were also provided with oxygen concentrators and computers pre-installed with e-learning materials on essential medical topics. The staff were also trained on-site to use the medical equipment as well as the computers. A short skills workshop on the management of trauma and emergency surgical and obstetric problems was also conducted on-site.

Local Woreda (council) members were present during these presentations and agreed to continue to work together with the health centre staff and the link in improving health care provision in these health centres. We intend to strengthen these links through further visits early next year.

Community link between Abergavenny and Yirgacheffee

A five member team visited Yirgacheffee and met with key members of the local community to discuss developing a community link that will engage in areas such as education, water and fair trade. We were accompanied by a journalist from the BBC who intends to make a documentary of our activities in Southern Ethiopia.