To improve the right to health
28 July 2016 | Informations
SIERRA LEONECAPACITY BUILDINGGOVERNANCE AND HEALTH POLICIESHUMAN RESOURCES FOR HEALTHFighting HIV / AIDS
Solthis started early 2016 the implementation of the Empower project, whose main objective is the strengthening of capacities of PLHIV and civil society in general to exercise their right to health.
This project with a duration of 3 years, is co-financed by the French Development Agency (AFD), the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation and the City of Paris.
It includes three parts:, strengthening caregivers' capacity in 12 treatment centers in Freetown and the regions and support our national institutional partners.
For the first part of direct support to people living with HIV and their networks in order to empower them and promote their greater involvement in their own care, our team has worked with the national PLHIV network Nethips. Solthis trained 9 trainers of Nethips, and then we conduct joint capacity assessments of six support groups for HIV patients.
For the 2nd part of this project, strengthening caregivers' capacity to improve the quality of care for patients in Freetown but also in regions (including Port Loko), Solthis continues to develop its quality improvement process: status and participatory diagnosis, develop roadmaps, initial training and refresher trainings for adult and pediatric management as well as pharmaceutical and clinical tutoring by our multidisciplinary team (HIV specialist physicians, pediatrician, midwife and pharmacist) in 12 sites supported in the country.
46 health workers have been trained in 12 health centers supported, 23 clinical mentoring visits in eight centers were organized and two specific training on the management of neurological opportunistic infections and co-infection tuberculosis/HIV have already been provided to 22 doctors and community health officers. Our team also works to strengthen the doctor-CHO-midwives-patient relationship for a better care and management of PLHIVs. We have had extremely positive feedback from the carers after the first training organized by our team.
Our team also works to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship for a better management of patients.
Finally, the third component of our intervention is to support our institutional, technical and financial partners. A first joint supervision mission in Port Loko was held in June with the teams of NACP and regional medical teams, which flesh out the desired involvement of intermediate and national health authorities in the implementation of this project, which also meets the expectations of the Ministry of health, MoHS in the post Ebola period.
