Impact soft, hard ethical skills to health workers - Mrs. Museveni

EDUCATION | MRS. MUSEVENI | EDUCATORS 

KAMPALA - The First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Mrs. Janet Museveni has urged the health professional educators and trainers to ensure that every health worker who goes through training is taught about the importance of acquiring soft, hard and ethical skills. 

She said this is what will enable them to favourably and competently perform their duties.

 “I urge you to mentor, guide and counsel students under your care and develop them into the kind of health workers that we can all be proud of and patients can commend,” Mrs. Museveni said. 

The First Lady was speaking virtually via Zoom while opening the national Health Professionals’ Education and Training and Health Care Conference on Thursday, April 28, 2022, at State House Nakasero. 

The Conference, which is the first of its kind in Uganda, took place from the 28th to 30th April at Imperial Resort Hotel Entebbe.  

It ran under the theme “A country with health professionals who are lifelong learners and always ready to confront any health condition/disease”. 

Mrs. Museveni advised the trainers to integrate character formation, modelling and training. 

She observed that it seems character formation has been ignored and yet it should be the determining factor of all the professionals that qualify to go into the service of our national health sector.  

“Without this one ingredient, we may have more than enough “trained” resource but whether we give the service our people deserve is another thing. That is why you hear people dying in our hospitals because if they cannot pay, the health workers ignore them until they die,” she argued.

She said that constitutionally, the Government of Uganda has the obligation to provide basic health services to its people and to promote proper nutrition and healthy lifestyles. 

The Government’s Strategy for Improving health service delivery, therefore, calls for the provision of training for Health workers to humanize the service as much as possible so that hospitals are not manned by robots which have no human feelings.  

She explained that Health professionals serve as a bridge between patients, the knowledge generated by scientific research, and the policies and practices that enable the effective utilization of that knowledge.  

The recipients of care; the public, she added, trust and expects health workers to provide healthcare that is excellent, kind, safe, timely, patient-centred, equitable and ethical.  

She urged participants in the Conference to address those issues that continue to affect the quality of service delivery in our countries. Pertinent to this area, she said, is the dwindling adoption of soft skills that define the quality of care of patients.”  

“It costs a health worker nothing, to be gentle, kind and humane. However, it is very unbecoming to treat any patient with uncaring disposition, which emanates from unprofessionalism amongst health workers,” she pointed out. 

Mrs. Museveni encouraged the health practitioners and educators to be equipped to move with the times and adapt to the era of continued Information and Communication Technology advancement in the provision of health care services. 

“As practitioners and educators, it is incumbent upon you to use this opportunity to: enrich the curricular, update assessment methods and allow for critical analysis of health care, during the performance of individual tasks”, she advised.  

She said that health professionals must use every opportunity to re-strategize, and enhance knowledge skills, while learning from each other, so as to build the confidence required to manage the ever-emerging challenges. 

She added that re-strategizing requires us to ensure that health facilities and training institutions have adequate numbers of trained health educators and health workers, functional infrastructure, as well as transparent management systems with strong governance structures, to promote quality training and efficient service delivery.

Mrs. Museveni thanked God for watching over the nations as they grapple with the adverse effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

She also thanked the health workers; the frontline workers, who sacrificed and continue to sacrifice their lives while fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic in the world. 

“We must thank those who choose to serve above self, for that is what is expected of this calling. I pray that this will be the attitude as you serve in this noble profession with dedication, that you always find encouragement in one thing, that God who is our rewarder knows the sacrifice you make daily, the sacrifice you have made during the Pandemic, and indeed will continue to make”, she said. 

Mrs. Museveni also inaugurated an 8-man Committee to develop a Policy for Health Professional Training and Development and charged the members to work tirelessly to ensure the sector has a robust policy. 

The committee will streamline the process of training and education of health workers right from the time they are recruited for training, graduation, and internship practice until they reach the level of licensing to practice by the professional councils.

State Minister for Primary Education; Dr. Joyce Moriku Kaducu, reminded the conference participants that the health profession is a calling from God and a vocation to serve humanity. 

She called on them to ensure that they improve the quality of the health professional training so as to produce competency-based students that will serve the people with love.  

Permanent Secretary; Ketty Lamaro, said the Education Ministry has operationalized an Inter-ministerial coordination committee in which challenges facing the health training institutions are discussed for solutions. 

She also revealed that the Memorandums of Understanding for Land Occupancy for the 14 Health Institutions, which were signed on February 14, 2022, will be handed over to the Principals at this Conference. 

Dr. Safina Kisu Museene; Commissioner Health Education and Training said that the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) adopted this annual Conference to enable the promotion of the principles of shared responsibility, collaboration, research and innovation, effective communication and knowledge sharing. 

The conference, which comprised of skills exhibition and scientific paper presentations, brought together key stakeholders from the public and private providers in health profession education and training. 

These included care providers, health profession educationists, students, development partners who came together basically to share best practices, and experiences and to lay strategies to improve the quality of training of health professionals in the country.

Other participants at the Conference included the Regional Director for AMREF Africa; Professor Joachim Osur, keynote speakers; Professor Simon Kangethe from Moi University Kenya and Professor Pemba Senga from St. Francis University College and Allied Sciences, Ifakara – Tanzania. 

Others were Professional Councils, Health Professional Examination Boards, National Council for Higher Education, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education and Sports Staff, Health Training Institutions Directors, Principals and Tutors, clinicians and students.

During this Conference, the best performers amongst the Principals of Health Training Institutions, Tutors and Clinicians will be recognized.