The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Scottish expertise aids health project
Scottish academics and doctors have helped to train the first psychiatrists to qualify in Malawi, ministers have announced.
The Scotland Malawi Mental Health Education Project supplied teaching resources and volunteer lecturers to help train three student psychiatrists in the south east African country.
The project, backed by a £300,000 cash injection from the Scottish Government, helped Malawi’s College of Medicine establish the training programme, working with South Africa’s University of Cape Town and Edinburgh University.
Ministers said there are now four psychiatrists working in Malawi, one for every 4.5 million people in the country, meaning it still has the worst ratio of psychiatric doctors to population in southern Africa.
The Scottish Government funding is now said to be supporting the training of four more psychiatrists.
Holyrood’s International Development Minister Dr Alasdair Allan said: “Thanks to Scottish expertise, for the first time in a generation, this project has helped train three clinically qualified psychiatrists at Malawi’s College of Medicine, including the first Malawian female to become a psychiatrist.
“The project has worked to address the chronic lack of mental healthcare provision in Malawi by educating and training mental healthcare professionals and establishing the postgraduate psychiatry course at the country’s College of Medicine.”
Dr Carol Robertson, a consultant psychiatrist with NHS Grampian involved with the project, said: “Over the past 11 years the project has arranged for over 100 volunteer psychiatrists to teach the undergraduates in Malawi.
“The very positive feedback that we get from these students will improve the treatment of psychiatric patients and has inspired some of them to train further.”