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This report documents the assessment of a family planning training program for providers to enable them to offer family planning counseling and methods, and make referrals where needed as part of antiretroviral therapy services in Ghana. [from summary]

The mapping exercise illustrated in this report was conducted to inform and support the efforts of the Ugandan Ministry of Health to increase the contraceptive prevalence through enhanced community-based distribution (CBD) of family planning. The specific objectives of the exercise were to determine the historical and current coverage of CBD of family planning services in Uganda, by both governmental and nongovernmental programs, and to identify potential districts for scaling up these services. [adapted from summary]

The emphasis of the COPHIA program is the provision of home-based care and support services by multi-purpose community-based health workers to vulnerable households in the geographic focus areas that are coping with the burden of caring for seriously ill family members or caring for orphans and vulnerable children. The COPHIA community-based health workers, with the support of clinical and non-clinical supervisors, provide the direct physical and emotional care and support services to PLWHA and orphans and vulnerable children in the project catchment area with the support of trained primary caregivers.

A questionnaire survey was conducted on 50 primary health care physicians in Iraq to assess their knowledge and identify misperceptions about breastfeeding. Basic knowledge about the main processes of breastfeeding was good (when to start feeding, frequency of feeding, relactation, importance of psychological factors), but there were deficiencies in their ability to deal with some practical problems related to breastfeeding. Steps for improving the knowledge and training are addressed. [from abstract]

The 2005 Barbados HIV/AIDS Service Provision Assessment (Barbados HSPA) survey report provides baseline information on the capacity of the formal public health sector in Barbados to provide both basic and advanced level HIV and AIDS services and the availability of recordkeeping systems for monitoring HIV and AIDS care and support. Within the Caribbean region, there is a concern for the recent training of health professionals who provide HIV and AIDS services, for health worker attitudes towards people living with HIV (PLHIV) and for patient movement within the region. The Barbados HSPA captured information on these region-specific indicators in addition to the standard HSPA indicators.

An immunization consultation is useful when health workers are providing immunizations in their service area, but do not work in partnership with the community to attain full coverage. A consultation is not training but rather an opportunity to step back, look at problems that lead to low coverage and design strategies that involve the community in increasing that coverage. The consultation outlined in this Facilitator’s Guide is designed to help trainers enable health workers consider ways to increase and sustain a high immunization coverage in their respective service areas.

The HIV/AIDS Service Provision Assessment (HSPA) was developed to assess the
quality and capacity of HIV and AIDS-related services in high prevalent situations. information on both basic and advanced level HIV and AIDS services and the availability of recordkeeping systems for monitoring HIV and AIDS care and support. Within the Caribbean region, there is a concern for the recent training of health professionals who provide HIV and AIDS services, for health worker attitudes towards people living with HIV and AIDS and for patient movement within the region. The Dominica HSPA captured information on these region-specific indicators in addition to the standard HSPA indicators.

The HIV/AIDS Service Provision Assessment (HSPA) was developed to assess the quality and capacity of HIV and AIDS-related services in high prevalent situations. Focusing on the formal public health sector in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the HSPA findings provides information on both basic and advanced-level HIV and AIDS services and the availability of record-keeping systems for monitoring HIV and AIDS care and support. Within the Caribbean region, there is a concern for the recent training of health professionals who provide HIV and AIDS services, for health worker attitudes towards people living with HIV and AIDS and for patient movement within the region.

In a rural village in India, newborn deaths have been halved not by neonatologists or high-tech interventions but by local villagers trained in simple life-saving practices. Some experts, however, are sceptical about whether this strategy can work everywhere. [from author]

The objective of this research is to explore inequities in utilization of skilled attendance at birth, delivery by caesarean sections and use of postnatal care services, by key socioeconomic factors in two home-based SBA areas of Bangladesh to provide insights for future programming. [from introduction]

This paper presents field narratives selected as illustrations of mythologising and masking in popular responses to HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The stories appear in the context of traditional health practitioners and the testimony of the healers is used to demonstrate the ways in which they interpret these narratives, and seek to challenge them.2 The examination then re-assesses these accounts, and the healers’ responses to them, in relation to the antipathy that exists between western medicine and traditional healing in the context of HIV/AIDS. [introduction]

This paper documents the results of the second year of operation of the HOPE Cape Town (HIV Outreach Program and Education) Pilot Traditional Healer Project, an innovative HIV/AIDS collaboration between traditional health practitioners and western medicine in the Western Cape Province. The paper identifies the project’s achievements, and explores key problems in operation and management, including recommendations for the design and implementation of future initiatives. [from introduction]

This brief is a best practice model for improving the quality and accessibility of family planning and HIV services in rural communities in Zimbabwe. [from author]

During the 1990s in Kenya, nurse midwives, a new group of private-sector service providers, were licensed to operate private clinics close to communities. The private nurse midwives operate private clinics, nursing and maternity homes primarily in densely populated peri-urban areas, rural trading centers and towns. The networks described in this report emerged out of the need for a sustainable supervision system and a continuing education program for the private nurse midwives. [from introduction]

This presentation from the Scaling Up High-Impact FP/MNCH Best Practices in Asia and the Near East Technical Meeting covers the reasons to support integrated services and the challenges to this process.

This presentation discusses the midwifery gap in Pakistan and the strategies they are using to address it.

Despite ample evidence that HIV has entered the general population, most HIV awareness programs in India continue to neglect rural areas. Low HIV awareness and high stigma, fueled by low literacy, seasonal migration, gender inequity, spatial dispersion, and cultural taboos pose extra challenges to implement much-needed HIV education programs in rural areas. This paper describes a peer education model developed to educate and empower low-literacy communities in the rural district of Perambalur in India. [from abstract]

Infectious diseases kill more than 10 million people worldwide every year. It is therefore vital that doctors receive a good education in this field. Online learning is one way in which doctors can learn new knowledge and skills. We conducted this study to determine whether the infectious diseases interactive online learning packages enabled primary care professionals to increase their knowledge and skills in the area of infectious diseases. [from abstract]

Modernizing the way health care professionals are educated and engaged in their vital work requires a collaborative and coordinated approach among many players. The Health Council convened the summit on health human resources to focus on practical, short-term solutions. This report attempts to capture the lively discussion and encouraging examples of innovation brought forward at that forum, organized into four theme areas: education and training, scopes of practice, workplace practices and planning. [adapted from author]

This is a review of current multi-lateral agreements, codes of practice, bilateral agreements, regional agreements, and strategies and position statements that govern the migration of health workers from ESA (East and Southern African) countries. The main purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current situation in ESA. [from executive summary]

This survey is the first attempt to examine the preparedness of the health
system to implement guidelines for HIV testing in clinical settings, and to provide comprehensive AIDS management. This includes availing HIV testing in clinical settings to both adult and pediatric patients, and providing treatment for HIV disease. The survey also examines the working environment in health care facilities, with an emphasis on HIV infection control and access to post-exposure prophylaxis for health workers themselves. [from foreword]

This paper examines the employment preferences of public sector registered nurses working in Malawi and identifies the range and relative importance of the factors that affect their motivation. The research was designed in the light of the Malawi government’s programme to address the shortage of health workers, which is based on salary top-ups as a means of increasing employee motivation and reducing high rates of attrition. This policy has been adopted despite relatively little quantitative exploration into the employment preferences of health workers in developing countries.

Knowing that quality is never an accident, always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution, and that it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, this abbreviated version of the Policy attempts to provide the strategic direction health facilities and officials need to follow to assure quality in health care and continuous improvement in the care that is being provided. Health care personnel are encouraged to use this copy of the Policy to focus their intentions and guide their efforts. [from foreword].

Given the limited availability of formal, inpatient programs, households rely upon informal caregivers (e.g. household or family members, friends, community members, or voluntary organizations) and homebased care (HBC) programs for assistance. This summary documents the roles played by household and HBC program caregivers in meeting the needs of the chronically ill.

This report summarizes the results of the first year of the two-year project entitled International Recruitment of Nurses to the United States: Toward a Consensus on Ethical Standards of Practice. It examines the structure and basic practices of the U.S. based international nurse recruitment industry. The purpose of the project is to facilitate consensus among stakeholders on how to reduce the harm and increase the benefits of international nurse recruitment for source countries and for migrant nurses themselves. [from author]

The Canadian health care system is one of the places where push comes to pull in terms of attracting health care professionals from sub-Saharan Africa. The authors call this the perverse subsidy: the costs of training these professionals are paid for by poorer people in poorer countries. The pull to Canada is equally a push from Africa. Reflections on a pilot study on a labour mobility issue that is equally a question of conscience. [from author]

This study evaluated biases in guideline untilization of evidence-based practice concerning contraception perscription. It was found that in India, Peru, and Rwanda, health care providers underutilize evidence-based practice guidelines as they prescribe contraceptives. This article ends with recommendations for providers to most effectively utilize evidence-based practice. [adapted from abstract]

This presentation describes the benefits and challenges of structured on-the-job training with evidence from a case study of Nepal.

Telemedicine is viewed as a new way of offering medical services. It is seen as a means of overcoming the growing shortage of health practitioners in developing countries. The aim of this paper is to highlight the need for the formulation of guidelines for the ethical practice of telemedicine in South Africa. [from abstract]

Within the Southern African prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programmes, counsellors talk with pregnant mothers about a number of interrelated decisions and behaviour changes. Current counselling has been characterised as ineffective in eliciting behaviour change and as adopting a predominantly informational and directive approach. Motivational interviewing (MI) was chosen as a more appropriate approach to guide mothers in these difficult decisions, as it is designed for conversations about behaviour change. MI has not previously been attempted in this context. This paper reflects on how MI can be incorporated successfully into PMTCT counselling and what lessons can be learnt regarding how to conduct training with counsellors.