Monrovia – Given the acute shortage of doctors, on Saturday, the First Batch of trainees of the Task- Shifting Project in advanced obstetrics has graduated.
Serving as guest speaker of the occasion was Dr. Moses BF Massaquoi MD, MPH, FLCP, FWACP, Country Director, and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) who thanks Maternal & Child health Advocacy International (MCAI) for affording him the platform to serve as guest speaker.
Dr. Massaquoi said the First Batch of Trainees of the Task- Shifting Project will provide 24- hour CEmONC services in rural hospitals and health centers until the country has enough doctors and is able to retain those doctors in rural area.
He also encourages the two new graduates to exhibit high level of professionalism in the discharge of their respective functions as they go out to serve humanity.
Dr. Massaquoi said, a thousand miles starts with the first step.
He thanked the ministry of health, WHO, UNFPA and LBMN for their financial and technical support towards the sustainability of the program.
In separate remarks, WHO County Director, Dr. Alex Gasasira thanked the Ministry of health for thinking in a positive direction.
He pledged his institution both financial and technical support to the program in order to train more doctors, midwives, Physician Assistant to fill in the gapes of the health sector of Liberia.
In 2013 the Government of Liberia established the Liberia College of Physicians and Surgeons (LCPS) in response to the Country’s critical shortage of Physicians and Physician specialists.
The LCPS is convener and lead organizer for the Graduate Medical Education programs in Liberia and is charged with the Mission to produce medical specialists who will demonstrate the highest standards of medical expertise, starting with four clinical disciplines: Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, and General Surgery.
With all the efforts in producing specialized human capacities couple with training nurses, Physician Assistants it will never be sufficient to provide health care to the population in need.
Task Shifting therefore is the trick where a given can shifted to lower cadres with shorter training and fewer qualifications.
Notwithstanding, the government of Liberia together with partners decided to help address the critical shortage of doctors that would normally perform emergency caesarean section delegate some functions to well advanced training to midwives to perform that task in certain area of health care delivery.