Status: Completed response
Burkina Faso
UK Emergency Medical Team (UK EMT) technical expert Angela Peca worked with the NGO Alliance for Medical Action (ALIMA) to support the COVID-19 response at one of three hospitals in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital city.
Recurring droughts and military coups have significantly affected Burkina Faso’s already fragile healthcare system, making a response to coronavirus even more complex and difficult.
Angela, a Portuguese nurse and experienced humanitarian, arrived in Burkina Faso towards the end of April 2020. She was based at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU), with the aim of providing surge capacity to ALIMA and supporting the country’s COVID-19 response.
“My aim was actually to go to every ward and train them… and I think that actually the most rewarding thing so far is actually being able to get them out of their comfort zone and speaking up… and we were learning with each other.” Angela Peca - Nurse, UK EMT
How we’ve helped
Angela’s activities included:
14
trainings and workshops
253
people received training
775
staff received supervision
The response in detail
Angela attended IPC meetings of the national IPC commission and organised weekly meetings between the focal points for ALIMA and CHU. She also shared national and international COVID-19 case management and IPC guidelines with partners at Alima, CHU, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the WHO.
During her deployment, Angela trained over 250 health care staff in hygiene and infection protection control (IPC). Topics included IPC, handwashing, mask wearing, use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and wellbeing and stress management.
She also created new triage signage and set up an alternative triage system at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU), so that more suspected COVID-19 patients could be seen safely, and to limit virus spread within the hospital.
We’re grateful to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) for UK Aid funding from the British people to fund this important response.
