“Most of our work at the Moi Hospital has been within obstetric and neonatal care”, says Dr. Åke Björn, who took the initiative to the International Medical Programme (IMP) at Region Östergötland. He has also been awarded an honorary doctorate by LiU.
Evelyne Mvungu (photo below) is a specialist nurse in obstetric and neonatal care at Moi University Hospital in Kenya, and one of the Kenyan care workers who have visited Sweden. The collaboration has made it possible for her to take further education, and she is now head of the neonatal care unit.
The IMP programme has also worked extensively with physiotherapy at the Moi Hospital. Region Östergötland has helped with setting up physiotherapy education at Moi University, and has, among other things, financed the education of several master’s students and
“The collaboration means that our physiotherapy programme now has a more solid scientific foundation. This improves the quality of the education and advances physiotherapy care in Kenya”, says Naomi Wanjiru.
A further area that has been given priority in the collaboration is patient safety, everything from hand hygiene to empowering the personnel to record care-related injuries and incidents, in order in this way to construct a knowledge bank of the risks. The Moi Hospital has become leading in East Africa in patient safety. Six hundred healthcare workers have received training in the subject, and the first patient safety conference in Kenya is planned for 2020.
LiU students from several programmes, within both medicine and other areas, are also involved in the exchange.
“For example, we have students of cognition science who have worked on degree projects in patient safety, and teamwork in the medical care groups. The next step is to find collaboration partners within research”, says Peter Berggren, acting head of operations at IMP.
Translated by George Farrants