A workshop with 20 experts from Doctors with Africa CUAMM, UENPS (Union of European Neonatal and Perinatal Societies), EPS (Ethiopian Pediatric Association), and the Health Ministry of Ethiopia has just concluded in Addis Ababa. This meeting marked the first step in the new intervention aimed at strengthening neonatal care in Ethiopia, all thanks to the support of the Italian government.
“The meeting of these two days was beneficial and fruitful for getting to know and connect with a group of Ethiopian Neonatologists. We were able to plan the main initiatives and the topics to be covered in a first congress that we will organize in January 2025, a starting point to improve neonatal care in Ethiopia,” said Corrado Moretti, director of UENPS.
This endeavor will see CUAMM at the forefront mainly in treatment activities, rehabilitation of some NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Units), provision of materials and equipment for the wards, and, most importantly, training of health personnel.
“It was an important meeting for all project partners,” emphasized Dr. Eleni Hagos, CUAMM pediatrician at St Luke Hospital in Wolisso. ”We defined the framework and the actions we will implement based on an interesting survey conducted by UENPS in 44 neonatology units in Ethiopia. Once again, we start from the real needs of people and look for ways and answers to improve the care of tiny newborns.”
CUAMM will renovate, improve and equip the neonatology units of Shire Hospital in Tigray and Black Lion Specialized Hospital in Addis. In addition, the project includes training 20 Ethiopian pediatricians through the involvement of neonatologists from Uenps and Eps. The Ethiopian pediatricians, in turn, will train 125 midwives and nurses on neonatal resuscitation. The expected beneficiaries are more than 20,700 women and more than 3,700 newborns treated in the Nicu of the two hospitals.
“I returned to Ethiopia after some years away, and I was able to verify that the country has grown in terms of neonatal care,” said Gaetano Azzimonti, CUAMM program manager, on the sidelines of the meeting. We found very competent and motivated people who have clear goals and are committed to achieving them; I am thinking, for example, of Cuamm pediatrician Dr. Eleni, Dr. Atsani, head of Neonatology at Black Lion Hospital, the largest in Ethiopia, and Dr. Bogale, president of EPS. The value of this intervention is in the training of neonatology doctors and the techniques and methodologies to teach them. These specialists will train other health personnel, midwives, and nurses, particularly from Black Lion and Shire Hospital, but in the future also in many different areas of the country.”
This intervention is linked to one presented in Tigray in recent days in the presence of Tigray’s interim president, Getachew Reda, by the Italian ambassador to Ethiopia, Antonio Palese, AICS Addis Ababa director, Isabella Lucaferri, and CUAMM director, Fr Dante Carraro.
