Botswana: Ministry formulates care model for health workers
24 May, 2006, Daily News Online
GABORONE - The Ministry of Health has come up with a new medical model Tshedisa Institute - to address the special psychological and medical needs that exist for health care providers in the country free of charge. This is part of the fight HIV/AIDS.
The centre, a brainchild of the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders will offer innovative strategies in medicine, physcological treatment and counseling, HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and testing and creative arts therapy.
Doctors can obtain a broad range of allopathic and alternative psychological support and medical care.
Giving a background to the project, Dr Howard Moffat, director of dospital services at the Ministry of Health said it started in l998 when it became apparent that there was a need to provide a safe and neutral environment for staffs emotional support and counseling.
Significant numbers of our staff were becoming stressed, demoralised and burnt out with the increasing number of patients, especially young and middle-aged adults, being admitted and dying with advanced AIDS, he said.
At that time we had no specific treatment to offer and generally it was a hopeless diagnosis, hence instruction to provide a suitable room were counseling of our staff could take place.
Dr Moffat said however that the ministry did not give up but took advantage of the health sector collaboration that existed with Norway at that time to increase its understanding of what would be helpful and create capacity to develop this kind of service for staff.
To this end, he said a needs analysis survey of staff from several hospitals revealed that approximately half the staff would prefer to access such services including HIV counseling and treatment at premises outside the hospital.
Among the services to be offered are free walk in voluntary HIV testing and comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment and care which will be provided by appointment.
Dr Moffat expressed gratitude to Dr Diana Dickinson who offered to make an unused part of her premises attached to her Independence Avenue Clinic, available for the project with Dr Ava
Avalos as its first executive director. BOPA
GABORONE - The Ministry of Health has come up with a new medical model Tshedisa Institute - to address the special psychological and medical needs that exist for health care providers in the country free of charge. This is part of the fight HIV/AIDS.
The centre, a brainchild of the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders will offer innovative strategies in medicine, physcological treatment and counseling, HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and testing and creative arts therapy.
Doctors can obtain a broad range of allopathic and alternative psychological support and medical care.
Giving a background to the project, Dr Howard Moffat, director of dospital services at the Ministry of Health said it started in l998 when it became apparent that there was a need to provide a safe and neutral environment for staffs emotional support and counseling.
Significant numbers of our staff were becoming stressed, demoralised and burnt out with the increasing number of patients, especially young and middle-aged adults, being admitted and dying with advanced AIDS, he said.
At that time we had no specific treatment to offer and generally it was a hopeless diagnosis, hence instruction to provide a suitable room were counseling of our staff could take place.
Dr Moffat said however that the ministry did not give up but took advantage of the health sector collaboration that existed with Norway at that time to increase its understanding of what would be helpful and create capacity to develop this kind of service for staff.
To this end, he said a needs analysis survey of staff from several hospitals revealed that approximately half the staff would prefer to access such services including HIV counseling and treatment at premises outside the hospital.
Among the services to be offered are free walk in voluntary HIV testing and comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment and care which will be provided by appointment.
Dr Moffat expressed gratitude to Dr Diana Dickinson who offered to make an unused part of her premises attached to her Independence Avenue Clinic, available for the project with Dr Ava
Avalos as its first executive director. BOPA
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 10:14 pm
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