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PAHO host 3-day workshop on Childhood Illnesses
A section of the participants at the workshop.
The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Ministry of Health yesterday commenced a three-day Sub-Regional Training Course on Integrated Management for Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) at the Regency Sites.
Also attending this workshop are participants from Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.
The training course was developed for nurses, medexes, clinical assistants and general medical practitioners.
Addressing the gathering was Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, who urged for health workers to be trained in all aspects of health.
“They must not only be able to suspect, diagnose and prevent diseases and treat it, but they must also become social scientists and understand the social economic conditions that exist in their communities,” Minister Ramsammy said.
He added that worldwide, more than 40 per cent of children under the age of five die within seven days of birth.
In Guyana, and throughout the Caribbean, however, if a child survives the first seven days, then there is a good chance that the child will live to be an adult. Globally, more than 70 per cent of child deaths are neo natal deaths, Minister Ramsammy said.
The training course is HIV-designed and is expected to build upon and complement the existing 11 day IMCI case management course which does not include the assessment or management of HIV.
The course aims to bridge a gap that might exist among health workers, and increase their knowledge on assessing and classifying young infants (aged up to two months) and children (aged 2 months and 5 years), along with managing common illnesses and infections among young infants and children with HIV classifications.
The training will also educate the health workers on preventing illnesses in young infants and children born to an HIV positive mother and at the same time improve their communication skills.
Meanwhile, during her remarks to the participants, Country Representative for PAHO, Dr. Kathleen Israel, noted that the World Health Organisation (WHO) in conjunction with UNICEF, introduced the Integrated Management of Childhood illnesses (IMCI) as an initiative that could contribute significantly to the achievement of at least one Millennium Development Goal (MDGs), which is to reduce childhood mortality by two-thirds by 2015.
In this regard, she noted that Guyana has been making steady progress towards the achievement of this goal and this is evidenced by the reduction in the infant mortality rate from 54 in 2002 to 37 in 2006.
“We would like to think that this success is largely due to the introduction of the IMCI programme in Guyana in 2003. The last five years, IIAS has seen major strides in the implementation of the Clinical IMCI programme with the training of approximately 200 health professionals including nurses, doctors and medexes which allowed for the programme to be integrated in almost all regions of Guyana,” Dr. Israel said.
She added that while a great deal of training was done in the past, it only focused on clinical IMCI and did not include the assessment and management of HIV.
“This course was designed to address this gap and therefore represents a complementary segment to build on previous knowledge.”
Dr. Israel explained that in light of the increasing burden of HIV and the high percentage of children infected worldwide, health workers need to be urgently trained and updated to enhance their competencies to effectively assess and manage HIV in children.
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