Banda EE, Mckenzie A, Littlefield JF; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 2002 Jul 7-12; 14: abstract no. WePeD6300.
Intrah/Equity Project, East London, South Africa
ISSUES: South Africa's slow recognition of the severity of its HIV/AIDS problem, changing policies on counseling, testing and care, and stuttering progress in defining public HIV/AIDS services left clinic nurses and managers adrift. In the Eastern Cape Province, rural clinic nurses were untrained in facts about HIV, lacked skills to counsel or care for HIV positive clients and many retained judgmental attitudes. Supervisors were ill-equipped to provide technical support or to protect clients' rights and tutors were not up-to-date. DESCRIPTION: Recognising the relationship between clinic services and managerial support to ensure quality of care, the EQUITY Project and the Eastern Cape Department of Health forged training programmes in clinical and managerial development for complementary members of district health services teams. The District Health Management & Leadership Program course on "HAST": HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and Tuberculosis (TB) services management targets managers of district programs in services design, services assessment, and practical experience in improving services. Their assessments found clinical skills and quality to be lacking. To effect and sustain clinical improvements, Clinical Updates in HIV/AIDS, TB, STIs, Family Planning (FP), and Child Health now target clinic supervisors, in-service trainers and pre-service tutors with related HIV clinical care approaches, thereby supporting both service delivery and future training. LESSONS LEARNED: Providing participants the opportunity to solve problems greatly enhanced improvements in district HAST services. Both managerial and clinic training are needed ensure necessary support for clinic services to respond to constant changes in policies and service packages. Next, links between policy makers and training should be established to ensure on-going integration of policy and practice changes into in-service training and pre-service education.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Administrative Personnel
- Child
- Delivery of Health Care
- Family Planning Services
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Health
- Health Personnel
- Health Planning
- Health Services
- Health Services Needs and Demand
- Humans
- Infection
- South Africa
- education
- organization & administration
Other ID:
UI: 102258712
From Meeting Abstracts