Strengthening links with Arfica

A nursing graduation in Eritrea, a link-up with medics in Lesotho, a new student placement programme in Malawi and a Rwandan Network newsletter are just recent examples of the strengthening links between the University and Africa.

Network Rwanda, a new publication linking the many individuals, charities and organisations involved in Rwandan support, was launched last month, during a visit to Scotland by Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

The biannual newsletter, which is supported by the Rwandan Embassy in the UK, is produced in association with the university.

Earlier in the autumn, Dr Francis Moto, High Commissioner of Malawi, visited Dundee to meet staff and students to discuss new ways of supporting the Scotland Malawi Partnership. One of the new initiatives on the agenda was the "Medicine in Malawi Placements" programme established by the University to help medical students contribute to frontline medical care in the African country.

The project will see fifth-year medical students from Dundee working in Kamuzu Central Hospital in the capital Lilongwe on a four-monthly rotating basis from July 2008.

The aim is to enable students to make a meaningful contribution to local healthcare provision in Malawi. In addition to working on their own ward, students will also have the opportunity to do research, audits, and to work on mini projects with international health organizations and at local outreach clinics.

The new programme was the idea of staff at the Tayside Centre for General Practice and includes as partner institutions the University Medical School, Kamuzu Central Hospital, and University of Malawi College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi.

The pilot phase of the project is being supported through three-year grants from the Scottish Executive International Development Fund and NHS Education for Scotland.

"All students currently have to do a two-month elective programme at the start of their fifth-year but we thought it would make a greater impact and be more useful if we could spend longer in Malawi and really get to grips with things there," said Rebecca Baird, one of the students who has helped bring the scheme together.

"It represents a really good opportunity for us as students but hopefully it will also have a considerable impact on healthcare in Malawi, where there is a real need to develop better infrastructure and care."

"Our aim is to promote the programme throughout Scotland and beyond to firmly establish Medicine in Malawi Placements at Dundee University Medical School for years to come."

During his visit, Dr Moto also heard details of nurse training programmes which the University has successfully run in Kenya and Eritrea through its Distance Learning Centre.

Since then the University has awarded degrees to its 30 newest nursing graduates at a graduation ceremony in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. The country is still emerging from the impact of 30 years' bloody war with neighbouring Ethiopia and some of the students graduating with Bachelor of Nursing degrees had worked as barefoot doctors in the war years.

University Vice-Principal Professor James Calderhead was in Asmara to bestow the degrees upon the graduates, who represent the second cohort to graduate through the programme.

"This is a programme which is having a real impact on health services in Eritrea, training a new generation of ward sisters, charge nurses and senior managers who can bring new skills to the frontline of healthcare," he said.

"The work being done by the Distance Learning Centre in Dundee and by the students in Eritrea shows how we can make a real impact in Africa and help to build the healthcare infrastructure that will help a country like Eritrea for many years to come."

The Distance Learning Centre, part of the College of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, was contracted in June 2003 by the Ministry of Health in Eritrea to enable senior Eritrean nurses to graduate in advanced nursing studies and bring a greater level of much-needed expertise to the country.

"Eritrea only has around 220 doctors serving a population of 4 million, so the role that nurses play is extremely important in delivering healthcare," said Pauline Horton, Education and Programmes Leader for the Distance Learning Centre.

"We graduated 18 new nurses two years ago and have another 25 this time, all of whom will take new expertise into their communities. The hope then is that they can pass this on and improve the levels of training and expertise within the country."

The University's African links were given a further boost last month when the School of Nursing and Midwifery was awarded a £60,000 grant to work with their counterparts in the tiny southern African country of Lesotho.

The grant was awarded jointly with the National University of Lesotha and is part of the British Council's Developing Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) initiative.

It will allow the two Universities to work together to develop education, research and information technology skills for healthcare and library staff in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the National University of Lesotho.

Lesotho is one of Africa's least developed countries. A mountainous country of just over 2 million people, it is particularly blighted by HIV & AIDS with 29% of the population affected.

Life expectancy for the population is estimated as being around 48 for men and 56 for women, although in some areas the average life expectancy is thought to be as low as 37.

The team from the School of Nursing and Midwifery - Professor Julie Taylor, Dr Kay Wilkie and Mr Andy Jackson, in partnership with Professor Philip O'Donkor of the National University of Lesotho - have been awarded the grant over three years, with the specific aims of the project being to improve maternal, child and mental health.

"Lesotho not only has a huge problem with HIV & AIDS, it also has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world," said Professor Taylor, who visited the country last December.

"What we are aiming to do is help develop their infrastructure both in the university and more importantly out in the clinical areas. A major problem they have at the moment is that they cannot train enough nurses because they can't support them in the clinical areas. By helping them to develop their maternal and child health research and the infrastructure around it we can help them develop systems that will enable them to train more of their own nurses."