DUSHANBE, March 20, 2010, Asia-Plus — The project agreement on medical education reform was signed on March 17 in Dushanbe between Rudolf Schoch, Country Director of the Swiss Cooperation Office in Tajikistan on behalf of the Government of Switzerland and Nusratullo Salimov, Minister of Health on behalf of the Government of Tajikistan.
According to the Swiss Cooperation Office in Tajikistan, since 2002 when the Health Care Reform Concept was developed, the Government of Tajikistan has been attempting to introduce family medicine services as a mean to make health care services affordable, effective and efficient. With the support of international organizations, the family medicine model has been developed and tested in 13 pilot districts covering 2.5 million of the Tajik population. The re-training of family medicine practitioners are currently funded by internationally financed projects through the specialists at postgraduate level. However, without a strong involvement of the Tajik State Medical University (TSMU) at the undergraduate level, it would still take decades to further develop and expand the family medicine model throughout the country and meet the country’s needs in family medicine practitioners.
The TSMU being the only educational institution in Tajikistan entitled to prepare and train medical doctors at undergraduate level will be the main actor in the roll-out of the family medicine and its related training schemes in Tajikistan. However, as also recognized by both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, the outdated curricula of the TSMU are not in line with the current national policy and the present needs of the health system. The reforming of the medical curricula as well as of the teaching methodologies and evaluation constitute thus an important step in the framework of the ongoing health sector reform. The present Project suggests addressing these specific and very crucial aspects of the Health sector reform in the field of medical education.
In an effort to address the need to upgrade the present medical education system, in 2007 the Ministry of Health and management of TSMU took the decision to develop a Concept to reform medical education in order to provide a legal frame for adapting the teaching program to the new health system requirements; the Concept was then approved in October 2008 by the Government, thereby vesting it with the legal value. Through the present project SDC strives to support the TSMU in the implementation of the Concept of reforming medical education in Tajikistan. This intervention is seen as a complement to SDC’s ongoing engagement for health care reform in general and the introduction of family medicine in particular. The development of family medicine services is considered essential in making health care service delivery more accessible and cost effective.
The present project is aimed at reforming medical education of doctors in Tajikistan in line with broader health reforms and strengthening family medicine. Improved teaching process at TSMU will have a direct effect on the quality of services. Moreover, the new curricula will significantly increase the country’s capacity to prepare family medicine practitioners thereby enabling the establishment of a sustainable family medicine based primary health care in the mid term perspective.
The present project is fully in line with the priority objectives as set in the Regional Cooperation Strategy of Central Asia 2007-2011 and constitutes an important step in improving the quality of health services and the accessibility of the poorest to health care services – particularly through the introduction of family medicine. It will be complementary to the existing SDC health portfolio in Tajikistan: as of today, the Swiss health program has co-funded the WB lead Community Basic Health Project and financed the component of Family Medicine training from 2006 to 2010. The so-called Sino Project is presently in the 3rd phase (2009 – 2012) and pilots family medicine based Primary Health Care (PHC) models in different regions, and the AKHS implemented Community Based Family Medicine Project aimed at improving the health status of the community by ensuring access to quality assured, community oriented, cost effective PHC through an integrated Family Medicine Model.
