Many of the regions in which Critical Care International’s clients operate suffer from high burdens of disease and poor healthcare infrastructure, with the majority of resources confined to major cities. In response to the limited medical education and supervision of regional healthcare workers, a client community liaison team requested that Critical Care International initiate a programme of weekly teaching sessions. The curriculum was based upon a combination of topics of concern requested by the healthcare workers and WHO data identifying the biggest killers in in the region. Weekly sessions include: pneumonia, HIV, tuberculosis, severe bleeding after childbirth, care of the premature baby, malaria prevention, sexually-transmitted disease, emergency management of the critically-ill patient, diarrhoea and accurate drug prescribing.
The programme has been highly successful with a marked improvement in the confidence and ability of workers to deliver a higher standard of healthcare. It has also provided a crucial opportunity to help the clients develop closer relationships with the local nurses and the local community, to better understand the challenges they face.