HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING IN THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE

MAKERERE UNIVERSITY, KAMPALA, UGANDA.

DR. JOSEPHINE KASOLO

MAKERERE UNIVERSITY

Background

• Preamble of the Uganda constitution states: ‘All Ugandans have a right to health’

• Chapter 4 of the1995 Uganda constitution gives all people equal rights before the law, regardless of race, creed, sex or political affiliation

• Uganda is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights plus, the international Covenant on Economic and social rights

Background

• Makerere University Medical School began in 1924, admitting students from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania

• It was the first medical school in sub-Saharan

Africa to serve East Africa

• Served the region up to 1972, when the universities of Nairobi-Kenya and Muhimbili-Tanzania broke off from Makerere due to Idi Amin era

Background

• During the pre Idi Amin era, Human Rights teaching was conducted as part of the Ethics curriculum

• During the Idi Amin era, the professor of Pathology taught ethics to third year medical students without human rights

• Professional ethics was taught during the fourth and fifth year of medical school

• There was no formal training of the lecturers in either ethics or human rights

Background • There was a change in 1986 when National Resistance Movement

Government come to power and human rights became a national issue once again

• Personal interest in human rights was spurred by the case of ‘Mbabazi’ with the realization that health workers had a role to play in protection and reporting of human rights violations

• Training was required on how to identify, manage and refer cases of HR violations

• In 2000, Makerere introduced “Innovations@mak project”

• The topic chosen for the project was ‘Training health professionals in human rights’ – knowledge, attitudes and practices of health workers on human rights

Background

1. Doctors and nurses had not read the Uganda constitution of 1995

2. The information they had on HR were from the media and hearsay

3. They had no formal training in human rights

4. They did not know what to do when faced with cases of HR violations like; torture, sexual abuse, child abuse or domestic violence

5. They were treated as all other trauma cases

Background

• There were limitations to curriculum change

• Content of the lectures on HR was changed to include sexual and domestic violence

• A group of 7 people to work on the Innovations@mak project was formed from forensic pathology, ethics, law, nursing, allied medical professionals, office of the dean and medical physiology

• While rolling out the human rights curriculum a new method of teaching was introduced

Current Teaching Method

• With the introduction of problem based learning, 3 years ago, HR is taught in first year alongside ethics and communication skills

• Human rights is covered together with forensic

pathology and professional ethics in 3rd and 4th year respectively

• Problems produced that bring out human rights violations

Basic sciences

Clinical

Year 1 YEAR 5

PROGRESSIVE INCLUSION OF HR IN THE PBL CURRICULUMSTARTING ACADEMIC YEAR 2003/2004

Objectives of teaching human rights to students in the faculty of medicine

• To have a fundamental understanding of HR

• To promote, protect and support HR

• To identify, manage and refer cases of HR violation

• Understand the rights of the patient as well as that of the health professional

Methods of teaching

• Tutorials

• Clinical exposure

• Self directed learning

• Skills laboratory

• Seminars

Lessons learnt

• There is need to train all tutors at all levels in human rights

• To identify more places for clinical exposure

• Produce learning materials

• Look for human rights issues in all the problems.

Way forward

• Tutors should be HR competent

• Integrated curriculum on teaching HR should be developed

• Need for interdepartmental harmonization in the teaching of HR

• HR should be a requisite for Continuous Professional Development