Binyam Tamene
20 August 2008
Addis Abeba — On-job training could be a key tool in retaining health experts in their respective hospitals, especially to those located in rural and referral hospitals of the country, said officials from the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), citing the foundation's Clinical Outreach Project as a model.
During a consultative meeting on AMREF's experience in Ethiopia on the project, Country Director Dr Joao Soares said the clinical outreach project is playing a key part to strengthen the secondary and tertiary health care services in Ethiopia through capacity building program in rural and referral hospitals.
"Instead of patients coming to hospitals, volunteer specialists go to them to give the necessary services to them," said the director. "The same goes to health personnel who wants to improve through Clinical Outreach Project's capacity building program," he added.
Dr Asrat Mengiste, AMREF Reconstructive Surgery Project Manager, on his part said brain drain is becoming difficult to the rural areas of the African countries.
"The flow of experts included not only to the outside part of the countries, but also includes from rural part to the cities, within the countries," Dr Asrat said indicating their demand for improvement in professional skill as one of the major factors.
"The on-job training would have influenced to alleviate this problem by reaching the demand of the professional," said the Project Manager.
Conducted by the research foundation, the project, which aims to establish effective and sustainable specialized health care services, tries to reach the rural through training and teaching programs, according to the officials.
"AMREF's role in the Clinical Specialist Outreach Project is mostly reserved as facilitator," said Country Director Joao Soares, talking about the project which the Foundation allocated around $5 million for its fulfillment.
Among 20 referral hospitals, the officials said, 10 targeted rural and referral hospitals are selected for the project based on different national assessments carried out.
These rural and referral hospitals are Gonder hospital, Dessie referral hospital, Bahir Dar referral Hospital, Adama referral Hospital, Nekemt referral Hospital, Metu Karl Hospital, Mekelle University Hospital, Hossana Hospital, Dichora referral Hospital and Yirgalem referral Hospital.
Presenting Ethiopia's experience on Clinical Specialist Outreach experience, Dr Alemayhu Seifu, Deputy Country Director of AMREF Ethiopia said, the project benefited over 748 health personnel's for the past two years.
"Over 748 health professionals trained through the clinical outreach program during the ongoing training," the deputy director said adding 1436 patients received conciliatory and medical care advice from specialists and benefit from surgical intervention as well.
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