Travel date: July 11, 2016
Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: Clinical Placement
Origin: Kumbo, Cameroon / Destination: Kampala, Uganda
I observed and participated in good palliative care practices, Developed skills on promoting and coordinating multidisciplinary team work, Developed skills on counseling of children receiving palliative care, exploring and understanding of their illnesses, dying and death, Able to assess and manage complex pain, Developed skills in the management of palliative care emergencies, Exploring and documenting sexuality issues in patients with cervical cancer and Identify and document psychosocial issues in patients and their family exploring them. Understanding the process of decision making process within the multidisciplinary team. Gained skills in exploring psychosocial issues. Gained knowledge on how to constitute metronidazole mouth wash –from hospice pharmacy and also learnt that Quinine tablet could be given to the elderly only at night to control muscle cramps.
With the knowledge and skills acquired I will do good and holistic assessment of my patients and give quality care. Organize and educate other health professionals about palliative. I will be an advocate for the patients as most palliative care patients can’t speak for themselves. I will collaborate with other media to be able have talks about palliative care on the local radio, national TV. I will also do presentations during clinical and nursing meetings. We shall work as a multidisciplinary team as the social workers, medical doctors, spiritual leaders etc shall all be involved when need be.
IT was very exciting to get this traveling scholarship, thanks to IAHPC for this kind gesture. It did not go without difficulties, it took the Grace of God for the money to get to the approved Bank and I made many correspondences and only got the money some few days to departure date. I had to take a loan to pay for the flight while waiting to receive the scholarship which made things more expensive for me. I wish to suggest that the scholarship be sent directly to the student concerned after making sure that they are studying in the school they have indicated.
In Cameroon palliative care began effectively in 2006 at the Banso Baptist Hospital which is the only model in the whole country. As there is an increase in HIV/AIDS and Cancer, there is also an increase need for palliative care personnel to be trained, so as to take care of these patients. Challenges: We have very few persons who have had training in palliative care, some health personnel want to be trained but they lack the financial support and some of them who want to use their money to get this training are not given the chance or the go ahead by the persons in charge. Lack of knowledge; since it a new concept many people have not yet caught the vision. So there is that need for educating. I will continue running out of credit