Israel trains Jirapa health workers

Health educators at the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel, have trained about 25 doctors, nurses and midwives at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Jirapa in the Upper West Region on treatment of diabetes.

The training is part of the Ghana ‘Tele-health Project’, a 10-week lecture series which centres on exchange of expertise and transfer of technical knowledge through videoconferencing.

A statement signed by the Ms Mina Okuru, Public Diplomacy Coordinator of Embassy of Israel and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said on Tuesday.

The common practice has been for Israeli doctors and nurses to lend their expertise to African counterparts through trainings usually done in person but the first health training through video conference allowed the exchange of information to take place face to face without the nurses having to leave Ghana or take time off from work and incur travel costs for a cross-continental visit, the statement said.

The statement quoted Dr Godfrey Bacheyie, a Ghana-born Canadian Rotary leader and physician, as saying the project is aimed at broadening the knowledge base of medical practitioners and allied health professionals.

It is also to create platform for interaction between healthcare providers in advanced and developed countries and their counterparts in a rural, resource-poor areas where one doctor serves a population of 80,000.

The project is a partnership among Herzog Hospital and the Rotary Club of Jerusalem, the Jirapa Health Alliance and Rotary Club of Accra Ring Road Central in Ghana, and the Rotary Club of Windsor.

Herzog’s Director of International Resource Development, Steve Schwartz said in the statement that the beauty of the videoconference was the opportunity for the exchange of questions and answers.

He expressed optimism that the Ghana Tele-Health Project pilot might be extended to cover additional topics at the hospital and introduced to other African countries in need.