Blog
Potential Partnership Between the College and the Zambian Training Bodies
- July 1, 2024
- Posted by: Harry Kearns
- Category: Blog
Left to right: Prof John Sheehan, Dr Francisca Bwalya, Dr Ravi Paul, College President Dr Lorcan Martin, Head of Continuous Assessment Dr Fiona Crotty, and Dean of Education Dr Aoibhinn Lynch.
Dr Lorcan Martin, College President, welcomed the two most senior psychiatrists in Zambia, Dr Francisca Bwalya and Dr Ravi Paul, to the College on 24 July. It was the start of a week-long visit which was funded by Esther Ireland and part of an initiative by the Special Interest Group (SIG) in Global Mental Health, organised by Prof John Sheehan in conjunction with Prof Anne Doherty, Prof Fiona Fenton and Prof Fiona McNicholas.
In Zambia, a training curriculum and formal structures are being established. The College hopes to support the Zambian training body in creating training structures in the specialty of Psychiatry.
Zambia is a sub-Saharan African country with a population of twenty million people. Their mental health service is extremely under-resourced with just eleven psychiatrists in public practice. All are general adult psychiatrists. There are no Child and Adolescent, Old Age or Learning Disability psychiatrists. There are no subspecialists in the areas of Forensic or Substance Misuse. Nationally, there are just twenty-three trainees in psychiatry, all based in the capital, Lusaka.
A potential partnership between the College and the Zambian training bodies would be of mutual benefit. It would be valuable for Irish-based doctors and trainees to learn about international psychiatry and increase their cultural awareness. These are relevant skills; in the College, we have trainees from fifty different countries and Ireland is becoming increasingly multi-cultural.
So far, there are 10 trainees and 6 consultants from the College signed up to this project, willing to share their time and expertise. No formal agreement on the partnership has been made yet. But the visit by Dr Bwalya and Dr Paul has strengthened the relationship. A Memorandum of Understanding could be signed in due course. The College will provide updates on any develops to this project.
Their Visit
During the visit to the College, Dr Martin gave the visitors a brief history of the College and led a guided tour of the newly refurbished premises.
Prof Aoibhinn Lynch, Dean of Education, gave a comprehensive presentation on psychiatry training in Ireland and Dr Fiona Crotty, Head of Continuous Assessment, spoke about curriculum development.
The visitors were also warmly welcomed to Leinster House by Mr Colm Burke, Minister of State for Public Health, Wellness and the National Drug Strategy. Drug and alcohol problems are major sources of morbidity and mortality in Zambia and treatment services are grossly underdeveloped. They met Prof David Weakliam, Director of the HSE Global Health Programme, and representatives of the Irish Global Health Network and Irish Aid.
They had site visits to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Beaumont Hospital, the National Drug Treatment Centre and the Lucena Clinic, Rathgar. They also met several BSTs and HSTs. The visits were facilitated by Prof Anne Doherty, Dr Robert Daly, Prof Mary Cannon, Prof Fiona Fenton and Prof Fiona McNicholas.
At the end of a busy week, the visitors left with new ideas for training and service provision. Doctors based in Ireland heard stories from our visitors of what it is like to work with extremely limited resources. Our doctors received a new appreciation for the facilities and resources at our disposal in Ireland.