Conversations on COVID-19, Webinar Series
Next Webinar: The Broader Health and Health Systems Impacts of COVID-19 in LMICs
Join on 29th May 2020
GMT: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Irish Time: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm (GMT+1)
Password: 0000
As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, the main concerns initially were to combat the spread of the virus, to save lives and to mitigate the anticipated increased pressure on health services.
However, COVID-19 responses will not stop and may exacerbate or lead us to overlook the impacts of other diseases, especially in LMICs. There is a risk of increased morbidity and mortality as a result of the disruption to essential services (facilities overstretched/overwhelmed, services refocused on COVID-19 – away from other priorities, patients stop attending, health workers sick or unavailable, etc.).
There are also the wider health effects of lockdowns and restrictions (deteriorating mental health, loss of income, lack of food, etc.). In recent weeks, there have been a number of stark reports highlighting the potential impact of COVID-19 responses on people’s health globally and in LMICs.
This discussion aims to highlight and identify responses to the challenges faced with trying to maintain a range of essential health services including for communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, mental illness; and for vulnerable groups such as women and children.
Speakers
- Prof Ruairi Brugha, Professor, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Webinar Anchor.
- Dr David Weakliam, Global Health Programme Director, HSE.
- Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Secretary of the Stop TB Partnership.
- Dr Elenia Macamo Amado, Deputy Director, Ministry of Health, Mozambique
- Dr Trish Scanlan, Paediatric oncologist, Muhimbili Hospital, Tanzania
Conversations on COVID-19, Webinar Series
Recording Available: Protecting Health Care Workers During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Streamed on 22nd May 2020
Evidence is emerging that health care workers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 than the general population. A key reason is the risk of caring in close proximity to infected patients. However, this can be mitigated by effective risk reduction through a hierarchy of controls.
Risks are exasperated in low-middle income country settings where PPE may not be available or where training and guidance on it’s usage is not clear. During this webinar, we heard from health care professionals who have been and are on the front lines in Italy, Kenya and the UK. In partnership with the Society of Occupational Medicine we invited speakers from Kenya, Italy and the United Kingdom to address:
• The WHO’s occupational health strategy for health care workers.
• Strategies for addressing key issues such as using the hierarchy of controls to protect health care workers, including the effective use of PPE.
• Protection of health workers experiences from Kenya, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Speakers
• Dr Ivan Ivanov – Team Leader, the Global Occupational and Workplace Health Team in the Headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva. Currently serves as occupational health officer in the COVID-19 response team of WHO’s Global Emergencies Programme.
• Dr Will Ponsonby, President (Chair) Society of Occupational Medicine. Senior Lecturer in Occupational Medicine for the MSc in Occupational Medicine at the University of Manchester.
• Professor Pierluigi Cocco. Prof. Cocco is full (ordinary) professor of Occupational Medicine at the University of Cagliari with a long-standing collaboration with the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
• Dr Joy Mugambi, general practitioner from Nairobi, Kenya. Joy has been involved a lot in WHO’s work on the occupational health of health workers. She is also the Secretary General of the World Organization for Family Physicians (WONCA) Africa region.
• Webinar Anchor: Prof Ruairi Brugha, Former Head of Epidemiology and Public Health, RCSI, Ireland
A recording of this webinar will be available on our YouTube channel, along with the previous webinars.
COVID-19 Learning Resources and Selected Articles
In response to COVID-19 pandemic, ESTHER Alliance for Global Health Partnerships decided to provide and resource the available knowledge and evidence to support workers in health care, global health and institutional health partnerships.
We created this COVID-19 web page, Which consists of 3 sections: Webinars, Learning Resources & Selected Articles.
We started ” Conversations on COVID-19” webinar series jointly with Irish Global Health Network, our host institution in Ireland. These webinars host experts in the field to discuss and share expertise regarding COVID-19 response.
You can check our previous and coming webinars here
We are collecting the latest and most helpful learning and support resources for individuals working in Health Care and Global Health. You will find links to free courses by international recognised entities, released guidelines and much more.
You can check these learning resources here
COVID-19 pandemic has various dimensions and affect our lives in different pathways. Here you will find some interesting articles that might help us understand the pandemic better, and to know what is the possible impact of the pandemic on the global populatin and health.
We are an alliance of governments and allied organizations. Our members engage institutions in effective and sustainable North-South partnerships. Our partnerships strengthen the capacity of the health workforce and institutions to provide quality health services for people in low and middle-income countries. We promote institutional health partnerships through knowledge generation, sharing best practice, collaboration, and advocacy.
The ESTHER Alliance is set in the general framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. We contribute mostly to SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing and SDF 17 Partnerships for the Goals. Those two goals taken together highlight not only what we want to achieve (better health for all, or Universal Health Coverage), but also how we want to achieve it (through better, more equal, and balanced partnerships.
This is a new tool for institutional health partnerships, EFFECt stands for EFFective in Embedding Change. The tool specifically focusses on assessing implementation best practice, embedding change and the added benefits to individuals and institutions of using a partnership approach. The EFFECt tool measures these in relation to capacity building activities irrespective of the focus of the specific intervention.
