Immersion in public health in cities with the worst HDI in Brazil – Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)

Name of the activity: Immersion in public health in cities with the worst HDI in Brazil

Country/NMO: Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)

Program: Health Systems

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

According to data from the United Nations Development Program, 2010, the State of Maranhão in Brazil has 159 of its 217 municipalities with HDI considered from Low to Very Low. In order to change this reality, the Government of the State of Maranhão created a project through the Health Department called “More HDI Plan”, which has the State Health Force of Maranhão, and worse HDI in the State, with the purpose of working in these 30 cities four basic “focuses”, which are: women’s health, children’s health, hypertension and its alterations, diabetes and its complications. Within this project, multidisciplinary teams were sent to these 30 cities, including Doctors, Nurses, Physiotherapists, Dentists, Speech Therapists, Psychologists, Nutritionists, Pharmacists and / or Occupational Therapists. The IFMSA Brazil collaborated with the project through the participation of medical students within these multidisciplinary teams. The work dynamics was based on joint care, that is, the academics followed and helped the health team, which basically focused on home care, hypertension screening, health orientation and education, and other behaviors as recommended by Attention Primary Health System in Brazil. Feedback was recorded from each of the academics, assessing the importance of the experience to them and the impact of the project.

Focus area:

Primary healthcare from the perspective of the health system

Problem statement:

According to informations of United Nations Development Program, the State of Maranhão , in Brazil, have 159 of your 217 counties considered low or very low. At the same time two of these counties are in the second and fourth position of worst HDI in all the world. With that we see that Maranhão has problems in the industry, trade, education and health system what results in a low quality of life. In this way, it is important that we, as medical students, act in this population, helping to supply the lack of health and information to them and to promote continuous education in health. The interchange to this areas with students of different places in Brazil is a opportunity to understand and learn about the health systems in other states and to offer help to the ones that really need a improvement in the health care.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The target group involves cities with low levels of human development index (HDI) in the State of Maranhão, in Brazilian Northeast, which benefited directly from the basic health services that were provided, as well as health education. In addition, the relatives and people close to the target group were indirectly benefited by the multiplication of information and improvement in the quality of life of the community, as well as the medical students who participated, because they were in contact with the professionals, acquiring knowledge and practical experience, in addition to the human, ethical and social gain that experience has provided.

Objectives and indicators of success:

The main goal of the activity is to integrate the national interchange of IFMSA Brazil with public health by a immersion of the medical student in the reality of health systems in places with a low HD in state of Maranhão in BraziI. With the partnership with FESMA ( Health State Force of Maranhão), this activity aim to improve the education between the population that don’t had access to information about health and how to prevent diseases, by making activities in the health promotion in more away cities. At the same time, the activity also aim to teach students how to act as doctors in difficult situations, where it is not possible to find the right material to many procedures.
In this way the target group of this activity is the population of Maranhão, Brazil, and the indicators of success are related to the report of these about the attendance and the improve of the service given to them when they need. At the same time it is important to evaluate the opinion of the medical students about the activity to see if it was good to the both sides. Only evaluating the opinions of the students about the experience and the improve of the service after the beginning of the interchange is possible to see if the activity was a success or not.

Methodology:

In order to change this reality, the Government of the State of Maranhão has created a project through the Health Department called “More HDI Plan”, which counts on the State Health Force of Maranhão, and includes the 30 cities with the lowest HDI in the State, with the purpose of working in these 30 cities are four basic “focuses”, which are: women’s health, child health, hypertension and its consequences, diabetes and its complications. Within this project were sent multidisciplinary teams to these 30 cities, involving Physicians, Nurses, Physiotherapists, Dentists, Speech Therapists, Psychologists, Nutritionists, Pharmacists and/or Occupational Therapists. The IFMSA Brazil collaborated with the project through the participation of medical students within these multidisciplinary teams. The work dynamics was based on joint care, that is, the academics followed and helped the health team, which basically focused on home care, hypertension screening, health orientation and education, and other behaviors as recommended by Attention Primary Health System in Brazil.

Plans for evaluation:

Each one of the participants made a feedback based in five elements (1. likes; 2.thoughts; 3. dislikes; 4. knowledge; 5. what they were going to remember). After this individual feedback, all the comments were put together in a way to make a formal feedback of the activity and to know if attends to the expectations and the objectives that had been established for the activity in the begging of all.