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Since March of 1997, the Nursing Reform in Central Asia has made significant
strides in helping improve health care in Kyrgyzstan. Many other countries
among the Central Asian Republics say that Kyrgyzstan has been in the forefront
of reform in health care as well as in other areas.
The Ministry of Health, in consultation with international advisory groups,
applied the principles of family medicine in the formation of approximately
900 primary care clinics called Family Group Practices (FGPs). Each FGP
consists of 1 or 2 of the following: internist, pediatrician, obstetrician-gynecologist,
and several nurses, and a manager. Many FGPs are also associated with
outlying Feldscher-Accoucher Points (FAPs). Feldschers are like nurse-practitioners
or physicians assistants. You can read more about the FAPs in the Emergency
Medicine article in our Summer 2005 newsletter on our website. The
medical, nursing, feldscher, and EMS training programs are facilitated
by STLI professionals and have provided the ongoing training component of this
effort.
Feldscher “Training of the Trainers” Class The teaching clinic began in March of 1997. What had been suspected,
became painfully true -- nursing care quality was very low. There was
virtually no modern nursing literature available in the Russian language that
had been published since the 1940’s.
In order to bring these nurses current
information and training, a course was put together by STLI professionals
to train the future teachers. The last
official teacher-training class was held in 2004.
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A total of 82 nursing teachers were retrained in a one-year program that focused
on education, nursing fundamentals and basic nursing skills in all areas, with
an extra emphasis in clinic care.
Over half of the alumnae are now teaching in each of the 7 provinces (“oblasts”)
of Kyrgyzstan. The remainder are participating in training programs in
Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, or have leading positions in several
other nursing institutions. Updated and improved nursing literature has
been developed (see below) and more will soon be published.
OB emergencies taught to feldschers Some of the nurses in the FGP retraining program have been feldschers. The
need for a more comprehensive retraining program for feldschers has finally
come to light. Such a program started in January 2005 with a class of
about 28 feldschers. About twelve went back into the EMS system and the
remainder are teaching other Feldschers in the FAPs. EMS, nursing, and
medical TOT faculty taught the course.
Feldscher
Teacher Class |
