The main objective is to improve the quality of treatment and care for people with diabetes and thereby prevent severe diabetes complications throughout Ethiopia. This will be reached by training of health care professionals and increased access to treatment and care by establishing outpatient services in rural areas of Ethiopia.
Expected impact
36 physicians and 36 nurses receive training based on IDF-Africa’s Clinical Guidelines of Diabetes Care and the Diabetes Education Manual
12 regional hospitals equipped to provide basic minimal standard care for diabetes
30,000 patients benefited from outpatient services for diabetes care and education
Results to date
33 doctors and 39 nurses have been trained.
6 diabetes clinics have been strengthened.
2,519 patients have benefitted.
Project details
Almost 1 million people in Ethiopia are diagnosed with diabetes and the number is expected to rise during the next decade. Ethiopia has a reasonably good primary care outpatient service for people living in rural areas. However, none of the health professionals in these outreach hospitals are educated sufficiently about diagnosis, prevention, treatment, care and monitoring of diabetes. By implementing this project, this situation is expected to change.
Approach
This project is the first WDF-funded project in Ethiopia. Since the project aims to decentralise access to diabetes treatment and care, it is being implemented in 12 regional hospitals throughout Ethiopia outside of the capital Addis Ababa, namely Awassa, Mekele, Jimma, Dire Dawa, Bahir Dar, Nekemt, Adama, Assella, Dessie, Abarminch, Wolaita and Harar.
In the first phase of the project, physicians and nurses will be trained based on the IDF-Africa’s Clinical Guidelines and Diabetes Education Manual. The training sessions will be conducted by members of the medical faculty of the Addis Ababa University and it will last for four days. One year after this training, all participants will be invited to a two-day refresher course to share learning and gain further skills to improve the quality of the care provided. This course will also work as a feedback forum, where areas that need improvement will be identified. The training will be conducted for health care professionals from 12 different regions of Ethiopia, which will make care and treatment of diabetes accessible for people living in areas with few opportunities for treatment of this disease.
Through the two training sessions, the health care professionals will be provided the necessary tools to manage the routine treatment and care of people with diabetes in their respective regional hospitals. Furthermore, they will be in charge of organising education of people with diabetes in order to enhance self management, secure compliance and thereby improve the quality of life for people living with diabetes.. Additionally, they will be taught how to teach their coworkers, to secure continued care and treatment of diabetes.
The training of nurses will focus on the technical aspects of diabetes treatment and care and on counseling skills, to improve knowledge about diabetes amongst people with diabetes and their families about the seriousness of the condition, need for attention and day to day self-care. The education sessions will cover topics like general information of diabetes, diabetes and food, insulin therapy and self-care activities that educe the risk of diabetes complications.
The 12 regional hospitals will be equipped with basic materials for diabetes diagnosis, management and patient education. Outpatient services will be offered twice a week in the afternoon in facilities that can cater to needs of 40 people each time. The education material used will be adapted to the Ethiopian context. Posters will be placed at the training sessions and small booklets will afterwards be distributed to the literate part of the population or to people with literate family members.
In the longer run, the Ministry of Health (MoH) is expected to undertake the continuation of the activities initiated in this project. With their newly developed strategy of an improved focus on non-communicable diseases and in collaboration with the Ethiopian Diabetes Association (EDA), it is believed that the MoH will continue reaching out to many people in rural areas of Ethiopia to prevent development of severe complications due to diabetes. At the end of the project EDA together with all partners will organise review meetings with the aim of evaluating the project and disseminating the result.
