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The aim of Right to Care’s Training department is to develop the knowledge and skills aimed at enhancing the capacity of human resources to those rendering quality HIV care, treatment, and support.
The staff complement comprises a Training Programme Manager – a registered nurse by profession; a clinical team of three registered nurses; a skills team of two social workers; and an administrative team of a coordinator and two admin assistants. The countrywide training is offered to both Right to Care and Department of Health staff.
Training is provided to ancillary staff to equip them to impart relevant and correct information to the public.
The department offers 15 training programmes to treatment sites and programmes supported by Right to Care. The courses are conducted by experienced clinical staff.
The programmes are offered currently in five provinces: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, Western Cape, and Free State. Most programmes are conducted provincially, with only certain courses conducted in the Gauteng region. Examples of these are the Six day HIV management course for doctors, and the Three day counselling skills refresher course. Training is based on the current South African guidelines and policies, encompassing guidelines from the World Health Organisation, Centres for Disease Control and other relevant bodies.
The department targets five categories of personnel for training, namely, doctors, nurses and allied healthcare workers, counsellors, and non-medical personnel.
For doctors:
Two programmes are offered:
- A six-day HIV Management Course. Registered nurses are also enrolled for this training, following successful completion of the HIV Management programme for nurses.
- One-day paediatric ARV's, PMTCT, and adherence update.
For nurses and allied healthcare workers (pharmacists and dieticians):
Four programmes are offered:
- Adult HIV Management Course (4½ days)
- TB Course (2 days).
- Paediatric HIV Management Course (5 days)
- PMTCT course (1 day)
- Paediatric ARV's, PMTCT, and adherence update (1 day)
For counsellors:
Nine programmes are offered. The two components to the counsellor training – skills and knowledge – are equally important and function together. Both encompass specific values and attitudes required of a counsellor. The skills programmes are:
- 10-day Basic counselling skills course
- 2-day Voluntary Counselling & Testing Course (VCT)
- 3-day Adult Adherence Course
- 3½-day Paediatric Adherence Course
- 3-day Counselling Skills Refresher Course
The knowledge programmes are:
- Basics in HIV Level 1
- Basics in HIV Level 2
- Basics in HIV Level 3
- ½-day TB & STIs for counsellors
Below is the outline suggested for counsellors to follow in order to grasp both knowledge and skills in the field of HIV – Adults & Paediatrics, STIs, and TB.
The 10-day basic counselling course is the minimum requirements on entry level into the suggested programme outline. Persons not having these basic skills can apply and be trained in them at Right to Care. Progress can only be achieved on a step-up approach to each level, that is, a counsellor cannot move up without achieving success in the previous level.
For non-medical personnel
Three programmes are offered.
Basics in HIV Level 1: This course was designed to equip anyone working in the field of HIV with the basic information on HIV, the immune system, the lifecycle of the virus, transmission, staging, testing, monitoring, ethics and care of the individual infected with HIV. This programme is also targeted at enrolled auxiliary nurses.
Basics in HIV Level 2: This course was designed to impart information on antiretroviral medicines and to examine various aspects of the pandemic in greater detail, such as TB, Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome (IRIS), and HIV in women.
Basics in HIV Level 3: This course was designed to provide information on important clinical syndromes like lactic acidosis and HIV wasting. Included are the 15 most common opportunistic infections encountered. This course is aimed particularly at self-development of staff and more importantly to assist the data capturer to be more accurate in data input.
Internal Continuing Professional Development (CPD) system
All clinical staff must remain current and up to date at all times. They should attend a certain amount of conferences, ward rounds, HIV Clinicians Society meetings, journal club, and in-house training where applicable.
Administrative staff are also encouraged to enhance their skills by attending external training programmes, as well as implementing innovative training techniques like, for example, the SMS confirmation system.
CPD accreditation
CPD accreditation is awarded to all doctors attending the HIV Management Programme, and the one-day Paediatric ARV, PMTCT, and Adherence Update course.
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