Motivation is currently seeking volunteers for 2-3 week placements at hospitals in developing countries. If you're a nurse, doctor, therapist or other health professional with expertise in SCI, your skills are desperately needed around the world.
Founded in 1991, Motivation is dedicated to empowering people with mobility disabilities to effect long-term social change. Disabled people are one of the largest groups of underserved, marginalised people. We work to address inequality and reduce poverty to enable disabled people to participate in society as equals. www.motivation.org.uk
In low-income countries, 75 percent of people with spinal cord injuries (SCI) do not survive more than two years after their injury. Most die from easily preventable complications such as urinary tract infections or pressure sores. Many of these complications first develop whilst they are in hospital, as health workers often have very little knowledge about how to care for patients with SCI. Something as simple as turning a patient every few hours could prevent a pressure ulcer from developing. Instead, many patients are left in one position, allowing pressure ulcers to develop in a matter of days or even hours.
Motivation are setting up a volunteer programme to send SCI health professionals (nurses, therapists and doctors) on temporary placements at hospitals in our programme countries. Over the next five years, we plan to place volunteers with partners in Uganda, Tanzania, Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia. To create a sustainable stream of volunteers, we will set up long-term partnerships with UK SCI Centres. These Centres will benefit from an exciting forum for professional development of their staff whilst sharing their knowledge and expertise with their counterparts overseas.
During placements, volunteers will be able to use basic educational resources that Motivation has developed to provide information to nurses about SCI management. During their time in-country, they will work alongside staff to assess needs, mentor staff, provide care to patients and provide specialist training based on local needs. They will also, where possible, collect baseline information about the rate of pressure ulcers and UTIs so that it is possible to monitor and measure the impact of their training and any changes in procedures they advise.
Ultimately, the training and mentoring they provide will reduce complications and save lives -- and in order to maintain this impact in the long run, new volunteers will provide regular follow-up as part of a long-term exchange programme, 'twinning' individual hospitals in Africa with individual UK SCI Centres. These new volunteers will also collect follow-up statistics to measure the long-term impact of the previous volunteer placement.
Details on how to volunteer for this programme are attached on this page.