The Strengthening Health workforce Capacity Through Global Learning (SCALE) Programme https://uukha.org/scale/ is a collaborative health workforce development Programme between Ministry of Health and National Health Service (NHS) Health Education England (HEE) coordinated through Uganda UK Health Alliance (UUKHA). It is a specialty and subspecialty clinical training Programme that is currently focusing on 4 priority areas: critical care, maternal fetal medicine, neonatology, and Emergency Medicine.
The implementation will be in 3 phases: a virtual phase for clinical grand rounds, placement of Ugandan fellows into the NHS and the placement of UK fellows in Uganda.
It is to this background that on May 17, 2022, a team from the UK SCALE EM partner, and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) carried out a scoping visit to the Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. This was to establish the gaps and how they can contribute to the development of the emergency medicine training and service delivery in Mbarara and Uganda as a whole. These were welcomed by the dean faculty of Medicine Dr. Joseph Ngonzi, his deputy Dr. Jonans Tusiimire and Dr. Prisca Kizito HOD, Emergency Medicine and the President Emergency Care Society of Uganda (ECSU). These were accompanied by Drs Bagonza Kenneth and Justine Athieno both EM physicians.
The RCEM team was led by Andrew Fryer (International Manager), Victoria De Witt (International training coordinator) and Dr Derek Harborne (Proprietor of the MMed EM Programme at MUST and member RCEM). The team was joined by Helen Slattery (HEE) and coordinated by Dr Henry Muwonge (Country Lead UUKHA).
In meetings with Dr Joseph Ngonzi the Dean Faculty of Medicine, Dr Jonans Tusiimire the Deputy Dean Faculty of Medicine and Dr Celestine Barigye the Hospital Director, the team expressed their commitment to continue supporting and to improve the virtual grand rounds as well as establishing pathways for bilateral exchange of EM workforce through collaboratively agreed models. RCEM has further committed to support research by faculty through supporting their grant applications.
The team was very impressed with the level of organization of the EM department at the University and remarkably commended the setup of the simulation lab and the residents training sessions.
Succeed we MUST.