By Kuda Pembere
Nine neonatal specialists from Russiawere in the country over the past week sharing their experiences with twenty three neonatal health doctors and midwives from Zimbabwe’s central hospitals and provincial hospitals in neonatal care.
This exchange comes at a time when Zimbabwe is working on reducing the high neonatal and maternal mortality rates.
Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora at training of trainers in emergency obstetric and neonatal care said Government’s iinterventions are focussing on ensuring that health care is accessible, affordable being of high quality for all citizens.
He said the exchange is a culmination of his visit in Russia where they discussed about the issue of training Zimbabwean health workers.
“But during that visit again, we had discussions with the Minister of Health on issues of cooperation in terms of training. When we left there, they promised us that they could take a few specialists at a time to train in emergency medicine as well as other highly specialized areas which we would identify. And that is a work in progress.
He added, “We hope to send some more specialists there to Russia to train in various specialties. We are happy that they’ve been able to send a team here. Because it’s much cheaper when they fly in here. As I said, we had a lot of people. You can see the numbers of people who attended. We had asked if a team could come to Zimbabwe.”
The Health Minister said they intend to rope in undergraduates for the exchange program with Russia.
“So, this is part of the program. What is left is also to have undergraduates going there to study. What has been happening is we have had some students going to study in Russia in the medical field. But it was not a well-coordinated program. Some of the students, most of them who are in Russia at the moment, went on their own. They are on their own monies,” he said.
He went on to note that they are looking into ways of increasing the health work force .
“And some of them are facing difficulties raising the monies to train. So, what we want to do is to see a more organized way to help us train more in the medical field. As you know that our combat talks to increasing or doubling our health workforce by the year 2030,” Dr Mombeshora said.
The Russian Ambassador to Zimbabwe H.E Nikolai Krasilnikov said his country has been making strides in reducing neonatal and maternal mortality rates through increased training.
“It is with great pleasure that I use my privilege as the Russian Ambassador to highlight the work of the National Medical research Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology named after the outstanding specialist in the field Professor Vladimir Kulakov.
“In course of implementation of the international project by the Russian Ministry of Health designed to reduce maternal and infant mortality in Africa and in some other parts of the world the Kulakov Center dispatched a team of medical practitioners for seminars and training sessions to share their knowledge and expertise.
“Maternal and child health is one of the priorities of the Russian public health service. In recent years, we have succeeded in optimizing the maternity care system by increasing its accessibility and quality. That has been achieved through the significant progress in training, in development of intensive care technologies and neonatal critical care, capacity in medical-genetic services and counselling, prenatal diagnosis and the standardization of health care with improved data collection,” he said.
Dr Rumbidzai Makoni, the national trainer for emergency obstetric and neonatal care in the country said Zimbabwean participants were from Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West and Masvingo
“It may just be a few representatives who came from Mashonaland East and Mashonland West and the central hospitals but these will go back to their institutions, these will go back to their provinces, these will go back to their districts and teach their colleagues on what they have learnt in this training and cascade the information downwards.
“This may actually help people in these places and hopefully continued exposure will make sure that we cover all the areas of Zimbabwe but in the meantime we are focused on Masvingo, Mash East, Mash West and the central hospitals,” she said.
Dr Kseniia Gorina said the training was important to acquaint Zimbabwean doctors and midwives with latest developments in neonatal care.
“I work in a perinatal centre in Moscow, Kulakov Centre, that’s the highest level of maternity care in Russia. And I, with my team, come to Zimbabwe and Zambia to give the training from the reduced maternal and neonatal deaths and also morbidity and mortality,” she said. The training is important because the maternal deaths and neonatal deaths and also mortality is very high in Africa and Zimbabwe also.”
She added, “And we try to give and to give our experience to your doctors, to your obstetricians, midwives, neonatologists about emergency care in delivery room, in emergency room. Also we give our experience, but not only our, I mean Russian experience, but the worldwide and high-level guidance from the evidence-based medicine.”
