Director of Primary Care in Sierra Leone Vues

Position Title: Director of Primary Care
Reports To: Director of Clinical Programs, PIH Sierra Leone
Location: Sierra Leone (based in Kono District with travel to Freetown

Organizational Profile:
Partners In Health (PIH) is an international health organization relentlessly committed to improving the health of the poor and marginalized. PIH partners with local governments to build local capacity and works closely with impoverished communities to deliver high-quality health care, address the root causes of illness, train providers, advance research, and advocate for global policy change. Our delivered services in the field are based in our partnership with the Governments and Ministries of Health and the support to education, training and mentorship to Health care workers and students is one of our pillars for the Health care system strengthening.

PIH currently has implementation programs in Haiti, Rwanda, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Peru, Mexico, Russia, Sierra Leone and Navajo Nation. Through our partnership with Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, we support a wide range of programs in dozens of other countries around the world.

Our Work In Sierra Leone:
Partners In Health (PIH) began supporting the government of Sierra Leone in response to the Ebola epidemic in October 2014. Recognizing the large need for continued investments in the health system after Ebola, PIH is committed to long-term health system strengthening in support of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS), guided by the same principles as our emergency response and our work around the world: public sector accompaniment, integrated and comprehensive services, social justice, nimbleness and flexibility, partnership, community ownership, and evidence-based interventions. In the aftermath of the epidemic, PIH is committed to supporting the delivery of comprehensive health services in Sierra Leone, from the community level to the health centre and to referral hospitals.

Description of the role:
One of PIH SL’s top priorities is to strengthen the delivery of primary care services in rural, public clinics. PIH’s experience growing the private Wellbody Clinic has given us a strong foundation from which to drive success in strengthening public clinics. The work at Wellbody Clinic continues to grow. Hundreds of patients visit the clinic each week to get free health care services. We are proud that no women have died from preventable maternal causes since 2016. We are looking for a Director of Primary Care to help lead our work at Wellbody Clinic as well as PIH’s continued expansion to other primary care sites across Kono District, and beyond.

PIH SL is ambitiously setting out to transform Koidu Government Hospital (KGH) and Wellbody Clinic (WBC) into academic training and teaching sites for all types of health care workers, serving as model teaching institution for the region and enabling improved service delivery not just in Kono, but across the country. The Director of Primary Care will also have responsibility to oversee some of the clinical training and education programming that will benefit clinicians delivering primary care activities both at clinics and at hospitals. In addition, PIH-SL is actively working to construct a Maternal Center of Excellence that expands KGH’s campus to provide not only world class health services to women and children, but will also serve as the foremost clinical training institution outside Freetown. The Director of Primary Care will play a key role in advising on the primary care referral networks that will need to be strengthened with the opening of the MCOE.

The Director of Primary Care will also build out PIH-SL’s ambitious plan to train the next generation of healthcare practitioners in Sierra Leone. It will involve building curricula in collaboration with PIH-SL clinical leaders, PIH leaders across the world, and academic partners both in Sierra Leone and abroad. While the Director of Clinical Programs helps to oversee ongoing clinical trainings for existing staff and to identify new training opportunities. The Director of Primary Care is working to build out the necessary staffing structures to prepare us to launch our first training institute on KGH’s campus.

Roles and responsibilities:

Primary Care Responsibilities (50%):
– Work with the Senior Management Team to identify needs and help mobilize resources to expand our primary care work
– Liaise with PIH Sierra Leone leadership to build out a five-year strategic plan for primary care expansion
– Perform a quality of care audit at Wellbody Clinic, and build supervisory structures to ensure lead clinicians and community health officers are receiving support and oversight. Review clinical protocols and ensure harmonized treatment practices across clinical services.
– Coordinate activities of the peripheral health unit expansion team who are working in all PIH supported PHUs in Kono District
– Hold regular meetings with the different PIH SL departments to update on progress at the PHUs and also chart a course for how we can have an impact and expand more quickly to additional PHUs.
– Oversee primary care expansion budget
– Oversee Wellbody Clinic budget and ensure the maintenance and growing of high standard of clinical care at the facility as a model for the PHU expansion.
– Represent the Primary Care team in leadership conversations within Sierra Leone
– Learn from other PIH implementing sites about how they mobilized resources to expand services to additional government clinics, and what lessons we could apply to this work in Sierra Leone
– Be a primary point of contact with the District Health Management Team regarding our primary care expansion work, and to ensure they are up-to-date on our activities and that our activities are responsive to their needs
– Work with MEQR to ensure primary care assessments are conducted on time and analysed. Additionally, work with the MEQ team to disseminate findings of these assessments to appropriate audiences

Clinical & Academic Education (50%)
– Conduct stakeholder’s analysis to best understand what training programs exist in Sierra Leone, and where the major gaps are. Work with all PIH Sierra Leone clinical leads in Sierra Leone to best understand what types of training programs currently exist, and future trainings that may benefit staff.
– Liaise with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in collaboration with the Director of Government Relations to understand the clinical training programs available to nurses and doctors across the country.
-Outline the processes PIH SL would have to undergo to make sure the MCOE becomes an accredited training ground for future healthcare workers
– Liaise with Zanmi Lasante staff in Haiti to understand how the University Hospital in Mirebalais built credentialed residency programs for doctors, and how we might be able to replicate that in Sierra Leone
– Build a partnership with the University of Global Health Equity to best understand how PIH Sierra Leone and the Ministry of Health and Sanitation may link into their medical and training programs
– Document progress on planning through regular monthly written reports for the Senior Management Team, government partners, and external stakeholders while we work to build out accredited training programs at KGH, identify training opportunities for existing PIH SL and MOHS staff
– Proactively propose new activities and initiatives for the primary care expansion in partnership with the PIH CMO to the Senior Management Team
– Support the delivery of weekly sessions of clinical case presentations, medical literature review, mortality & morbidity review meetings, clinical topic sessions, etc. for CHOs, Midwives, and Medical doctors in collaboration with the Medical Superintendent of KGH and the clinical staff of KGH and WBC.
– Support the development of clinical skills sessions and clinical meetings for nurses to improve their clinical knowledge in collaboration with the Matron of KGH, PIH nursing director and the staff of KGH and WBC.
– Develop and implement the Advanced Training Program for CHOs with the Ministry of Health, CoMAHS and partners (Capacare and German Doctors) at Makeni School of Clinical Health Sciences (MSCHS) in Internal Medicine under the supervision of the PIH Director of Policy and Partnership and Chief Medical Officer.
– Develop assessment and evaluation tools and review the outcomes of that training program through program evaluation, feedback and examinations to certify the improvements in the clinical staff and quality of care.
– Support the previous clinicians in developing their skills in the areas of teaching, mentoring and training new staff to develop a new generation of teachers and trainers to support capacity building in education.
– Support the continued establishment of KGH and WBC as a district rotation and post-graduate training site for MOHS clinical education programs in Sierra Leone, including serving as the focal person for communication and partnership building with MOHS clinical training institutions under the direction of the CMO and Director of Policy and Partnerships
– Oversight of students that will be coming to our facilities for training or any specific educational program: CHO, medical students, house officers, midwifery students, nursing students etc.
– Supervise and review different training and education programs or activities developed for International trainers that may come to deliver them to the clinical staff in the facilities to ensure the alignment of these trainings with the daily clinical practise at KGH and WBC and the National protocols.
– Provide support and coordination for training programs led by clinical specialists across clinical departments at KGH and WBC
– Build and manage with the clinical training team an operational budget to support clinical and academic training programs for PIH Sierra Leone
– Ensure all clinical training priorities are integrated into the clinical education strategic plan
– Document clinical education plans, gaps, and opportunities for external stakeholders and donors

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