FROM ETHIOPIA TO TREVI THE PHYSIOTHERAPISTS OF GONDAR UNIVERSITY

The training internships in the field of physiotherapy for health workers from the University of Gondar, the second largest city in Ethiopia, home to the training school for physiotherapists and physiatrists, in the country in the Horn of Africa, start from 18 September. This first group of operators who will start their training in September will be followed in October and November by a second group from St Paul Hospital, the largest hospital in the capital, Addis Ababa. The internships will take place until the end of 2023. The preparation will be carried out by the operators of the Complex Structure of Intensive Neuromotor Rehabilitation of Trevi which also in the past welcomed the training courses promoted by GSI Italia in agreement with the Local Health Authority.

The program of training courses that took place in Trevi between 2022 and 2023, with those starting this month, follows repeated missions to Ethiopia by Umbrian doctors, already head physicians in the Local Health Authority: Dr Marco Franceschini in the hospital of Trevi and Dr Silvano Lolli in the hospital of Foligno.

The hospitality of Ethiopian health workers is taken care of by the municipal administration of Trevi, which in the spring of 2023 signed a preparatory agreement with the administration of the city of Gondar for the international twinning between the two cities.

The Waldensian Church is financing the project to support the health of the African country through the Otto per Mille resources.

In addition to the training internships in Trevi, the support program developed by GSI Italia includes:

– the preparation and publication of two training manuals for the university courses of Gondar University: “Practical teachings for the rehabilitation physiotherapist” and “Compendium for the rehabilitation of neurological patients“, written in English, with video dubbed in Amharic.

– There will be two info-training days, in Gondar and Addis Ababa, scheduled for the 350 hospital doctors in the two Ethiopian cities involved.

– “The state of rehabilitation in Ethiopia, perspectives and developments” is the title of the conference that GSI Italia has scheduled for the first months of 2024 in the capital. – The provision of electromedical instrumentation and the setting up of two rehabilitation gyms, an operation already started with the shipment of equipment to St Paul Hospital through a container in 2022 which will be concluded in 2024 with the delivery of the remaining setting up materials for the two rehabilitation facilities in Gondar and Addis Ababa.