St Francis Hospital, Katete, Zambia-NHS Borders, Scotland

At a glance

Fields of work: HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, Maternal and Child Health, Primary Health Care, Reproductive Health, Tropical Diseases

UK Link Partner: NHS Trust
UK Link Partner County: Selkirkshire

Developing Country Link Partner: Public Hospital/Clinic
Developing Country Link Partner: Zambia

Year Established: 2009

Link Details

This Link was established in 2009, though there has been a long established link between NHS Borders in Scotland and St Francis

St Francis Hospital

Hospital (SFH), Katete, Zambia since Dr Sandy Logie worked there in 1992. Both hospitals serve rural areas and are the same size with 350 beds each. Dr Dorothy Logie set up a charity to support the hospital after her husband’s death, and that now contributes to supporting the large HIV/AIDS clinic and the other work of SFH which serves a poor rural community of over I million people.

Current activities

The following programmes are running at the St Francis Hospital (SFH) in liaison with NHS Borders:

Syndromic and Diagnostic Management of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STIs) is a very successful programme which has been running for over 3 years. It includes HIV couple counselling and opt-out HIV testing, partner notification and contraceptive services by additional specialist nurse input. This programme was put in place three years ago by Dr Dan Clutterbuck, Consultant STI Specialist in NHS, and is running at both the HIV/AIDS clinic at St Francis Hospital (SFH) and at the District Health Centres in the Katete area. Long-term data measures the numbers of STIs treated, numbers of couples counselled, HIV testing in patients with STIs etc. A senior SFH nurse was funded to oversee this project with a District collaborator. Dr Clutterbuck visits twice per year and his NHS clinic nurse also visits. The total cases of STIs reported has risen from 211 (2009) to 677 (2010) and partner notification from 20 to 168, with greatly increased HIV testing at STI clinics. The programme is on-going.

2. Pharmacy:Funding was given by IHLFS in 2010 to improve the pharmacy system to ensure a reliable supply of medicines and surgical supplies for St Francis Hospital, Katete, Zambia. The project has installed ‘Ascribe’ pharmacy software system at SFH to support consistent, reliable, efficient and cost effective procurement of medicines and surgical supplies and to prevent “stock-outs”. This project was completed after two visits in 2011 by NHS chief pharmacist, an IT technician and a member of ASCRIBE staff. The project has trained two SFH pharmacy staff to be high level ASCRIBE system users to help maintain and housekeep the system to make it sustainable.

3. A three-year old ultrasound machine has been donated by NHS Borders to SFH to improve the diagnostic work in radiology at SFH. Local funding raised money for a radiographer to visit early 2011 to train on the new machine.

This donation has been a huge success and is being heavily used daily.

4. A number of oxygenator machines have also been donated to the paediatric ward.

5. A management trainee from NHS Borders raised money to go to work at SFH for two months in 2010. She has greatly helped with various management and staff challenges, and taught management theory to the staff.

6. Midwifery. Preventing Maternal Mortality .

Following from a needs assessment in 2010 by Dr Brian Magowan consultant NHS Borders obstetrican, he made a successful bid to THET for funding for emergency obstetric training that would benefit the quality, timing and outcome of referrals from both the District midwives and the hospital staff. Plans are afoot to train using the teaching model based on the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine “Life saving Skills” course which covers emergency training in Haemorrhage, Eclampsia, Sepsis, Obstructed Labour, Complex Deliveries, and Miscarriage Management. Dr Magowan and two midwives from NHS Borders will conduct a two week training course in November 2011.

7. Paediatrics . A consultant physician from NHS Borders, and a paediatrican in training Dr Sara Burns, have worked at SFH during 2009-10. Others are keen to go if funding can be found.

Link Requests

Funding to allow further exchange of staff, to purchase and transport equipment, and for medical and technical exchanges for clinical teaching.

We hope to continue the liaison with SFH and to support St Francis Hospital in general. (St Francis is an Anglo-Catholic Mission and 2nd level Government of Zambia government Hospital) and covers a wide area in the eastern province of Zambia