VTT Sets Off for Uganda

The aim of a Vocational Training Team or VTT is to train others or be trained.

This years team is heading out Uganda for two weeks to train birth emergency skills to health professionals from Ngora Freda Carr Hospital and from surrounding health centres.

The team itself consists of four midwives. Samantha Fleming is a consultant midwife and Claire Carter teaches infant feeding and care of the preterm baby from Royal Berkshire Hospitals.  Danielle Naughton is a practice development midwife and Gillian Pearce is a governance midwife and the Rotarian Team Leader, both from Hillingdon Hospital.

We will be training student nurses, midwives and health professionals covering various subjects including haemorrhage, deteriorating pregnant woman and baby, newborn life support, and difficult deliveries such as when the baby’s shoulders get stuck. Claire covers how to keep babies warm and how to feed them when it is difficult to latch babies onto a mother’s breast.

We will also be working with the community, along with the Rotary Club of Ngora, who are planning a Rotary Family Health Day for our last Friday in Ngora. This could be a challenge!

The events planned are Family Planning, Antenatal Care, Immunisation, Deworming, Cervical cancer screening, health education and training on menstrual hygiene. When I attended their meeting a couple of weeks ago via zoom, they had just completed a similar day and had 1500-2000 people attending!  It looks like it will be a busy day!  

Our VTT is funding the menstrual hygiene element of the Family Health Day, and we will also be giving health education.  We also give a small payment to each person who attends the Health Day to cover their travel costs and the loss of a day’s pay.

There is no system in Uganda for continuing education, so by providing this training we are able to give health professionals an update on their skills. To do this we use World Health Organisation guidance and Global Health videos. One day is going to be spent training health professionals to become trainers, so that they can pass the information on once we have left. We also leave equipment, so that the trainers can carry on.

Gillian Pearce
VTT Team Leader
​Member of Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club

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