We used participatory approaches to facilitate a programme of work aimed at: * Improving communication and understanding between HIV positive clients and the HIV clinic personnel in HIV clinics; Raising HIV positive clients’ voices and participation in improving the HIV clinic services in the division; Promoting networking to overcome isolation, increasing exchange and co-operation through conducting; Participatory approaches, while challenging and time intensive, were perceived by health workers, clients and the facilitators to be a powerful means to enhancing communication, overcoming power imbalances that are barriers to good health or effective use of services and to encouraging the sustainable, “bottom up” community involvement on health visioned in Kenya health policy documents. Real changes were made to make the services more client-friendly, including installed suggestion box, re-streamlined queuing and filling system, taking of vital signs, interpreter involvement, and ordering of bulk drug supply, while clients formed a network that would sustain the communication and reduce social isolation of PLWHIV.
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The nursing curriculum of the University of Namibia is based on Primary health care approach. However nursing students do not have the skills for a participatory approach to communities and perceive that communities do not know or need to be consulted on their health needs. Communication breakdown between communities and nurses is not in the interest of either. This study aimed to create awareness among the student nurses to help them view the communities as partners in health, and at the same time to empower the communities to be more responsible for own health.
The Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) commissioned this review of current multi-lateral agreements, codes of practice, bi-lateral agreements, regional agreements, and strategies and position statements that govern the migration of health workers from ESA (East and Southern African) countries. The paper provides an overview of the current situation in ESA, and the strengths and weakness of current codes in application in the region.
The Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town is offering a 5-day short course addressing the changing role of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries. The course focuses on the financial management of risk pools in diverse settings covering a broad spectrum of insurance arrangements including community-based health insurance, private voluntary insurance for the formal sector and social or national health insurance.
The Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town is offering a 5-day short course addressing the changing role of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries. The course focuses on the financial management of risk pools in diverse settings covering a broad spectrum of insurance arrangements including community-based health insurance, private voluntary insurance for the formal sector and social or national health insurance.
Over the past fourteen years considerable effort has been made to restore the functional capacity of the health sector, reactivate disease control programmes and re-orient services to Primary Health Care in Uganda. Ensuring that the resources for health fairly reach those with greatest need and that all have fair opportunities for health is a priority and not a matter for the Ministry of Health alone, but for all sectors whose activities affect health, and for all sections of society. As a part of this there is a body of work taking place in Uganda in government, academic and civil society institutions to explore, understand and propose options for reducing inequalities in health in Uganda. This abstract book presents the papers from a national meeting that aimed to assess the progress of equity in health in Uganda, review gaps and needs in the Ugandan health sector, to feed into and draw from experience in East and Southern Africa.
The closing date for abstract submission for EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa is approaching. Please visit the conference website to download the abstract form and the registration form for submission. Preference for sponsorship will be given to accepted abstracts. We look forward to welcoming people from government, non state organisations, academic and research institutions, civil society, parliaments, regional and international organisations and other institutions promoting and working on equity in health in east and southern Africa! For more information, please visit the conference website at http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php or send queries to admin@equinetafrica.org, with EQUINET CONFERENCE in the subject line
The objective of this study was to describe the current status of continued professional development (CPD) of healthcare personnel within the Ministry of Health (MoH) health centres in Blantyre, Malawi. It concludes that healthcare professionals in Blantyre's DHO zone are using mostly clinical hand-over meetings, seminars and workshops for their CPD. There is need to improve access to relevant professional journals. The regulatory or licensing boards for healthcare professional in Malawi should seriously consider mandatory CPD credits for re-registration.
African countries are highly dependent on imported medicines and related products despite a stated policy intention in the African Union and regional bodies to develop local pharmaceutical production, which is expected to facilitate responsiveness to local health needs and has stated advantages for employment, skills retention, and foreign currency savings. Noting these policy intentions, this paper explores how the stated policy of local production in African Union (AU), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC) policies is being implemented and the bottlenecks to implementation. The paper examines the efforts made in selected countries to overcome these obstacles and the role of international and south-south co-operation. Drawing upon document reviews and key informant interviews, it presents case studies of Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe and their co-operation agreements with China and India. The study found limited evidence of operational co-operation, especially that which is based on south-south collaborations, despite the potential contribution of such collaborations to overcoming bottlenecks to local medicines production. Although the evidence from the case studies had limitations, the research suggests that a convergence of interests between countries in east and southern Africa and emerging economies on trade and investment cannot be assumed and that national and regional economic and social interests need to be actively negotiated to overcome identified bottlenecks. The authors thus recommend measures to strengthen the enabling policy, legal, trade and investment environments, to strengthen oversight and regulation of medicines, and to enhance technical and strategic capacities in the east and southern African region needed to support local production of medicines.