Together with Dr Ron Neville from Westgate Medical Practice in Dundee, I returned from a fact finding trip to Malawi in November. We were privileged to visit all ten Malawi clinics in the project at least once and learnt about primary healthcare in Malawi, the guardianship model, working under the heat of the African sun and father/ daughter journeys.The healthcare professionals in Malawi had lots of questions about medical work in Scotland and we did our best to represent each twinned medical practice in Scotland.
We also had the opportunity to formalise links with Malawi College of Health Sciences, Zomba Campus. The Campus Director, Lucy Chidothe, has very kindly agreed to offer her institutional expertise and support in the project now that VSO Nurse, Pam Wilson, has returned to Scotland. We are very fortunate to have the partnership of the Campus Director because the College educates the future nurses of Malawi and has student training placements with our twinned clinics.
The Project ethos when selecting suitable clinics for twinning is based upon equal and fair access to healthcare for all. We feel it is important to work with the existing national health structures in Malawi and therefore took time on the trip to listen to the guidance of both the Zomba and Blantyre District Health Officers. They were very supportive of the long-term, sustainable outlook of the Project and we look forward to working together.
Internet installation was completed at Limbe and Ndirande clinics with high specification computers and Malawi Television featured the Project work on their news bulletin. It was inspiring to help hardworking clinic staff access online medical journals and, in some cases, send their very first email.
Scotland has a lot to learn from Malawi. The health education seminars, guardianship model, outreach work and voluntary counselling and testing were just a few of the fascinating innovations that we observed and hope to bring back to Scotland.
Thank you to our friends and colleagues in Malawi (in particular Pam, Paul and Sylvester) who shared their homes, humour and humanity with us for ten days in November 2007.
Zikomo,
Jemma
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