THE Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), started a three-day training course Wednesday at Regency Suites Hotel on Hadfield Street, Georgetown.

It is a sub-regional programme on Integrated Management of Child Illnesses (IMCI) and involves participants from Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize and Jamaica, as well.

Minister of Health, Dr, Leslie Ramsammy said the IMCI approach will enable everyday health workers to make a difference.

It is about giving children a chance, giving their families a chance to make their dreams a reality, he said.

IMCI focuses on the well-being of the whole child and aims to reduce death, illness and disability while promoting improved growth and development of children under five years of age.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), in conjunction with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), introduced it as an initiative that could contribute significantly to the achievement of at least Millennium Development Goal Four (MDG 4), to lessen childhood mortality by two-thirds by 2015.

Towards that objective, IMCI includes both preventive and curative elements that are implemented by families, communities and health facilities.

Strategy
The strategy surrounds improving case management skills of health care staff, overall health systems and family and community health practices.

In the home setting, it promotes appropriate care seeking behaviours, better nutrition and preventative care and the correct implementation of prescribed care.

At health facilities, it promotes the accurate identification of childhood illnesses in out-patient settings, ensures appropriate combined treatment of all major illnesses, strengthens counselling by caretakers and speeds up the referral of severely ill children.

Ramsammy pointed out that the IMCI initiative is a well established one in Guyana as one of his ministry’s aims is that children should be able to lead fulfilled lives.

It was introduced in Guyana in 2003, in recognition of its benefits and, at the end of December 2008, approximately 400 health workers, one IMCI course director, seven senior and 17 junior facilitators were trained to ensure that the new approach is implemented locally.

Guyana has since seen the implementation in all ten Administrative Regions and a work plan to monitor the process has been developed with support from PAHO.

The system has also been included in the curriculum of the medical school, the community health workes and medex programmes of the Health Ministry and Ramsammy said theyu must be trained in all aspects of life, resulting in the comprehensive inclusion of IMCI in the Ministry endeavours.

He explained that, because IMCI forces health workers to be involved in not only diagnosing and treating but also the socio-economic environment of people, they, themselves, become better at what they do.

The adaptation of the IMCI chart booklet to include HIV assessment was initiated this year, involving personnel from the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS), among other agencies.

Gap
According to Dr. Janice Woolford, Adviser in the Maternal and Child Health Department of the Ministry, the complementary course on HIV, which the sessions will emphasise, is to bridge the gap that might exist among health workers.

She explained that the IMCI course on HIV is specially to increase participants’ knowledge.

PAHO Country Representative, Dr. Kathleen Israel said, in light of the increasing burden of HIV and the high percentage of children infected worldwide, health workers need to be urgently trained and updated to enhance their competencies to effectively assess and manage the virus in children.

She said the coursing is particularly designed to assist health workers in the early detection of HIV, provide care and support to appropriately manage cases and to administer anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to symptomatic children.

“It is also designed to assist health professionals to identify the role of families and communities in caring for children with HIV/AIDS, as well as to acquire enhanced counseling skills to impart to caregivers,” Israel said.

She declared that the efforts of the participants is a moral imperative, because no less is at stake than the lives of the most vulnerable population group, very young children.
Israel said IMCI has already been proliferated in 75 countries worldwide.