Hospice Africa Uganda Short Courses

  Healthcare professionals course
The Healthcare Professionals Course is offered to qualified healthcare providers interested in learning the basics of palliative care. This five day course introduces participants, including medical officers, clinical officers, nurses, pharmacists and dispensers to palliative care. This introduction includes pain assessment and management, understanding the additional needs of cancer and AIDS patients at the end of life. The goal for those completing this course is to improve their understanding and thus clinical practice around treating those with life-threatening illnesses.

This course has proven highly successful for healthcare professionals at ensuring lessons learned in their training about palliative care. It emphasises and prepares professionals to handle the needs of their patients, and when necessary refer them to the appropriate other providers.

  Allied professionals course
The Allied professionals’ course is offered to those professionals who work with healthcare providers including social workers, counsellors, teachers, lawyers, managers and support professionals. Individuals in these fields can be interacting with patients in need of palliative care and it is important that they are prepared and know the basics of how to interact and care for individuals at the end of life. This short course provides an introduction into palliative care explaining some basics of clinical practice at this time in a patient’s life. Key for these professionals is understanding how to communicate appropriately and work with other stakeholders to provide holistic care to patients and their families. A part of this course is the understanding of the network that is available to support palliative care patients and how to access these partners.

   Spiritual advisor’s course
For Ugandans, as is the case for many people, the end of life is intimately tied to one’s spirituality. Palliative care specialists are trained to be secondary spiritual advisors for patients. It is still important for patients to have spiritual advisors within their faith that understand the specific concerns at this time of life. It is not an easy part of any spiritual leader’s role to be present at the end of life and care for the needs of those patients. Thus the spiritual advisors’ course is a three to five day course that ensures participants understand the network available to support palliative care patients and ensure that they are confident to address the needs of patients at this time.

   Traditional healers course
Traditional healers are a part of the healthcare community in Uganda. Palliative care providers should not ignore this and traditional healers should not ignore palliative care providers. That is why this three day course is offered. Participants are introduced to aspects of palliative care provision and traditional healers are invited to share some of their wisdom on symptom control. An important part of this course is to ensure that traditional healers are made aware of concerning symptoms that indicate a need for referral. One of the goals of this course is to ensure patients who have life-threatening illnesses who are seen by traditional healers are referred to appropriate healthcare professionals.

 Community volunteer workers course
Community volunteer workers are a vital part of healthcare provision in Uganda. With so few health workers, rural populations are overwhelming underserved; community based health workers are a key aspect of healthcare provision in these areas. Community volunteer workers are trained by IHPCA in basic nursing and palliative care work with Hospice Africa Uganda to ensure those in need are found and properly cared for. This course is open to anyone with an interest and ability to provide these essential services. Enrolment on this programme is done through local communities and HAU. IHPCA provides the training on basic nursing, including wound care, bathing, basic diagnosis and appropriate referrals in the CVW training course.

  Rapid Morphine Prescriber’s Course
The rapid morphine prescriber’s course is a six week training that is offered to Clinical Officers. The core objective of this course is to train and accredit Clinical Officers as morphine prescribers. The course has nine modules which aim to equip clinical officers with the knowledge and skills to be able to prescribe morphine in the course of offering holistic care to both patient and family. Through this course students learn to do pain assessment, pain and symptom management, provide psychosocial and bereavement support.