BY MENGISTEAB TESHOME
Every year, Ethiopia spends significant amount of USD for medical tourism and an additional hundreds of millions to import medicines and medical equipment from abroad. To undo the challenges, the Ministry of Health is working round the clock through constructing tertiary healthcare facilities at public and private wings, building the capacity of health practitioners to meet medical service demand and promote medical tourism. According to various reports, the Ministry is working to fill the skill gaps of health professionals through putting well-organized Continuous Professional Development (CPD) approach targeting to ensure comprehensive professional development, improve the quality of health service delivery and advance the country’s health system.
Capable health workforce is essential to continually improve the quality of health service delivery and advance the sector. In this regard, the Ministry is working determinedly to upgrade the capacity of health professionals, deliver safe and effective healthcare services, address country’s health challenge thereby deal with the problems of patients travelling to other countries in need of standard healthcare services, said Assegid Samuel, Human Resource Development CEO in the Ministry of Health.
In an exclusive interview with The Ethiopian Herald, Assegid said: “The Ministry is striving to avail the services to patients, especially for those suffering from various severe ailments and seeking treatments such as kidney dialysis and transplant and heart problems”, he reiterated. The Ministry has staged platforms for professionals to exchange experiences from international partners, and renowned medical specialists in rare disciplines like pediatric cardiology, congenital heart disease and cancer among others.
It is clear that health professionals must maintain, update and enhance their knowledge, skills, and attitude to adequately deliver quality healthcare services through Continuous Professional Development (CPD). “Having lived experience and deeper insight is vital in imparting best experiences and dealing with various diseases.” He underlined. Above all, the approach is important due to a changing disease pattern in which ailments that had been once eradicated, are now reemerging, and for the reason of an increase in non-communicable diseases. Moreover, there is a need for CPD to maintain professional competence in an environment of numerous challenges, rapid organizational changes, information technology, increasing public expectations and demand for quality and greater accountability.
“The Ministry is struggling to ensure each health professional passes through CPD because the competency of health professionals has to be continually developed through effective, standardized in-service training.”As to him, the Ministry is working along with regional health bureaus, professional associations and development partners in the health sector to upgrade the skills of health professionals. Mentioning that renewing licenses based on years of service was compulsory for health professionals, he said but nowadays CPD becomes a perquisite to qualify. The primary goal of the CPD program is ensuring quality health service, making health professionals competent and to link the Continuing Education Unit (CEU) with license renewal requirements.
According to him, a national CPD committee composed of professionals and associations, commissioned to support the effort was established. “The number of Ethiopian patients traveling overseas seeking advanced treatment is increasing from time to time. To address the challenges and close the skills gaps, we are endeavoring to develop the human capital through imparting skills of health professionals from the multispecialty hospitals, hospitals that offer a wide range of medical services,” He further noted that the Ministry of Health (MoH) is committed to ensure the quality and standards of health services in the country. As part of its goal, therefore, Human Resource Development (HRD) receives special focus and is taken as one of the five strategic areas by the Ministry.
The Ministry will keep on initiating and strengthening continuing education including in-service training because it is an essential element to translate the objective of the HRD component.Asked about the challenges, Assegid said that limited understanding of institutions on CPD accreditors and course providers, inadequate capacity mainly from the sides of health professionals and associations in crafting courses as well as limited experience of sharing on CPD among health professionals are few. “Accessing health professionals with well-developed CPD materials to the hinterlands is getting critical”, he added.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2023
