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Winter 2009 Vol. VII, No. 2
Features
Health Care without Borders
The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) and the AUB Medical Center (AUBMC) are reaching out to Palestinian communities in both Lebanon and Palestine by training health care professionals and alumni on both sides of the border.
For the last five years, FHS faculty and staff have teamed with the Institute of Community and Public Health (ICPH) at Birzeit University to offer a summer course training program. It’s a natural collaboration, says ICPH Director Rana Khatib, given the long list of challenges she and her colleagues across the region face: the dearth of accurate and reliable data/information to support evidence and policy formulation, weak management information systems, lack of well trained health professionals in some fields, and a dependence on donors that leads to a focus on projects instead of national strategic agendas and programs.
There are common challenges, but also common goals. Rita Giacaman, who was formerly director of ICPH and is still actively involved in the training program, describes a “similar approach to public health in our region and a keen interest in developing capacity in our respective countries—and in the region.” The approach that they share “is developed sort of from the bottom up, in line with contextual need,” she says. Both Khatib and Giacaman explain that working in the West Bank can be isolating, and they especially value the chance to “share experiences, learn from each other, network, and investigate future possibilities for cooperation with each other and also with other countries and organizations as well.” Muna Khalidi, who coordinated these workshops until she left FHS in July 2007, echoes their sentiments: “Many of the participants really value the interaction between Palestinians from Palestine and those living here in Lebanon,” she says.
At AUBMC, another initiative provides technical assistance and training for health care professionals living and working in the West Bank. The Advancement in Hospital Management Program, organized by AUBMC and the Office of Regional External Programs (REP) are funded by the Diana Tamari Sabbagh Foundation and the Medical Welfare Trust Fund (MWTF).
A liaison committee at AUB for the Advancement Program including Drs. Ghazi Zaatari, George Araj, and Rima Afifi arranged with the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health for a group of 19 health-care professionals to travel to AUB in November. The group included 16 nurses who received training in emergency room, coronary care, intensive care, neonatal intensive care, and operating room and critical care nursing. AUBMC also arranged for two staff trainees from Jerusalem’s Maqassed Hospital to be trained in magnetic resonance imaging and blood bank and pheresis and for a director from the ministry to be trained in hospital procurement and supply management.
Gladys Mouro, the assistant hospital director for Nursing Services at AUBMC, explains that she and her colleagues—many of whom were at AUB throughout the years of the Lebanese civil war—could identify easily with some of the challenges that health care providers in the West Bank face and enjoyed the opportunity to interact with them. “I was reminded of the time during the war when we were so remote from everything that was going on and had no resources. Meeting and working with these nurses made me appreciate how fortunate we are at AUB,” she says.
Although the November training program lasted for only two weeks, the cooperation and support is ongoing and a new group is scheduled to travel to AUB in 2009. In addition, Dr. Said Hammouz, director general of Higher and Continuing Health Education for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, who coordinated the Palestinian trainees, says that he hopes to be able to arrange for Mouro to visit Palestine soon, to follow up on the November training. He expressed his deep appreciation to AUB, the MWTF, the liaison committee, and all the instructors who took part in this unique program.
The collaboration with Birzeit University is also ongoing. In addition to a training workshop that took place in January 2009, researchers from FHS and ICPH recently announced that they had signed a contract with Cambridge University Press to publish a book entitled Public Health in the Arab World. FHS Dean Iman Nuwayhid, and professors Marwan Khawaja and Samer Jabbour, and ICPH Professor Rita Giacaman will edit the volume that will include contributions from authors in the Arab world, Europe, and North America.
Attracting more students from across the region to its Graduate Public Health Program has been a priority at FHS for many years. Dozens of graduate students and research fellows from the region (including Palestine) have already benefited from fellowships and research support from the Wellcome Trust, the Arab Fund, and the Ford Foundation. In October 2007, the Ford Foundation awarded FHS a $1 million endowment grant to be matched before mid-2009 to support FHS’s Center for Research on Population and Health (CEPH) and to provide graduate scholarships in public health for regional students.
The program provides opportunities to fellows like Abdullatif Husseini, a health specialist and an associate professor on leave from Birzeit University. While at AUB he analyzed demographic and health survey data on Palestinian women in Palestine and their knowledge of and attitude towards HIV/AIDS, which he later wrote up and published in the American Journal of Health Behavior. He is one of the authors who will be contributing to Public Health in the Arab World.
Another FHS alumna, Suha Al-Madbouh (see MainGate, Spring 2008, pages 32-34), a PhD student at Bielefeld University who lives and works in Germany, has kept Palestine central to her life as the focus of her PhD research. She is doing a case study of the Lower Jordan Valley to identify the factors affecting farmers’ perceptions of wastewater reuse in irrigation and consumers’ perceptions of buying produce irrigated with treated wastewater. She hopes to find a job at a German university that will enable her to work on pairing research projects with Palestinian universities and institutions.
After graduating with an MS in population health in June 2007, Shireen Assaf worked as a consultant for various organizations in Lebanon—particularly in South Lebanon. She has published two articles from her AUB MS thesis in peer-reviewed journals and recently moved back to Palestine after living in Lebanon for three years. Assaf credits AUB with giving her the opportunity to acquire both the skills that she needs and the chance to make friends from other Arab countries like Sudan.
It was while she was a master’s student at AUB that Yara Jarallah discovered what she describes as “my passion for population health.” Jarallah, who earned an MS in population health in June 2005 and spent three months in 2007 as a visiting fellow affiliated with CEPH, now works fulltime at ICPH at Birzeit University. She is also a member of the Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (YCSSR) and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP).
FHS Dean Iman Nuwayhid notes that access to health services and education has improved in the region. “Nevertheless,” he adds quickly, “our region continues to suffer from more than its fair share of war, conflict, and instability. We are therefore in real need of well-trained professionals in public health”—of people like Abdullatif Husseini, Suha Al-Madbouh, Shireen Assaf, and Yara Jarallah.