Health Care Worker Education

A significant part of the LTFHC’s mission is to make a lasting impact on health care in the basin through health care worker education and support. There are countless health care workers stationed along Lake Tanganyika who are incredibly invested in their communities and are eager to learn as much as they can about the more complex issues affecting their patients. The LTFHC has a history of bringing physicians, medical officers and nurses together from different lakeside countries to receive training about problems they hold in common, ranging from conservative obstetrical fistula management to treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. This encourages development of local capacity in areas that are chronically understaffed, undersupplied, and overwhelmed by demand.

The LTFHC will continue to prioritize health care worker education on our referral hospital ship. While this ship will have long term, full time medical staffing with physicians, surgeons, and nurses, we will also host rotating groups of local staff for focused trainings. This will give health care workers from DRC, Tanzania, Burundi and Zambia the opportunity to work with the LTFHC on basic, as well as specialized, skill development. The LTFHC will, in turn, continually broaden its understanding of all the forces acting in the region influencing population health.