Zambia

Other Years


Zambia 2002 September


We spent a week in Lusaka in September 2002 teaching and updating Zambian Perioperative nurses from hospitals all over the country. Much of their knowledge and practice is well based but has not been updated for many years.

Our objective was to bring their theoretical and practical knowledge as up to date as we could, given the resources of the system that they work in. In the space of week it is not possible to cover every topic, and it was therefore based around documentation, safety of patients and staff, microbiology and infection control as well as developing nursing attitudes to patient care in the operating theatre which do not necessarily follow the medical model on which they have been originally taught.

Ongoing Work


Work undertaken so far in 2002 has been exciting and we know that there is support from within the Ministry of Health, the main University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka and from the Chief Nurse of Zambia.

We were able to support the development and re-launch of theZambian Operating Theatre Nurse Interest Group. (ZOTNIG) in September 2002.

They are now members of International Federation of Perioperative Nurses (www.ifpn.org.uk) We await a copy of their new constitution, which we helped to critique and news that they have achieved more members and are now beginning to network and thrive as an organisation.

Operating School of Theatre Nursing has already received generous support from Johnson and Johnson to revitalise the building in order to educate more Theatre Nurses in Zambia.

The next locally run theatre course starts in January 2003 and more books are necessary for their library in the Operating Theatre School. Can you help?

What they need is text books which update their existing ones, and develop their knowledge.
Useful additions to their library would be

We are supporting the re-launch and updating of the text of their Operating Theatre Manual (currently dated circa 1995) and need electronic text of theatre protocols and policies. Can you help?

To view the work carried out on other years in Zambia follow the links below.