AFRO-NETS> Staging Posts: a position paper (2)

[Dr Mannasseh Phiri <mphiri@zamnet.zm>]

Staging Posts: a position paper (2)
-----------------------------------

Much of the ideas being described here are already off the ground and 
being implemented (and have been for some years now) in some countries 
in Africa under the Communications for Better Health (CBH) programme of 
the New York based Dreyfuss Health Foundation (DHF).

STAGING POSTS

The CBH programme is based and housed at the medical school library in 
the African capital (which serves as the "staging post" being proposed 
here). The medical librarian serves as the point person (i.e. the 
"staging post officer") who with help of an 'editorial' team of doctors 
and other medical workers produces a regular (usually quarterly) digest 
which is sent out free to health workers in the far-flung hinterland. 
Such digests are being produced with varying regularity (and quality) 
in Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria. In Zambia, the digest 
contains abstracts of journal articles obtained from the MEDLINE data-
bases provided by DHF, from a database of Zambian health articles being 
compiled by the Medical Library and from various other sources. Com-
puter equipment has been supplied by DHF through a grant from IBM. The 
Health Sciences Centre Library of the University of Florida (a co-
operating partner in the project) supplies full text articles to the 
University of Zambia Medical Library on request. Readers are encouraged 
to fill in a tear-off form in each digest if they would like to receive 
free full-text copies of articles, request for a search on any health 
topic (not necessarily those covered in the digest), send their work 
for inclusion or make comments about the digest.

MONEY!

Apart from support from DHF and its partners, each staging post is en-
couraged to find ways and means of sustaining their own digest. Thus 
digests sell advertising space (again with varying degrees of success).

AHILA

The Association of Health Institution Librarians in Africa (AHILA) 
would find the suggestions made in "A WIDER ROLE" a nice addition to 
the challenges they set themselves at their 6th Congress held in Lusaka 
in September 98 - mainly to make relevant and up-to-date health infor-
mation more accessible to African health workers in remotest Africa 
(particularly information related to Child Survival).

More detailed information on CBH and AHILA can be obtained from the 
following e-mail addresses:

DHF & CBH in Africa <ewilliamson1@compuserve.com>
AHILA <shakakatar@whoafr.org>
Zambian CBH and Health Info Digest <medlib@unza.zm>

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, let's see what improvements we need 
to make to the existing model first!

Dr. Mannasseh Phiri
Company Clinic 
36 Kabengele Ave
Box 20705
Kitwe, Zambia
Tel: +260-2-222-536(o)
     +260-2-220-312(h)
Fax: +260-2-225-772
mailto:mphiri@zamnet.zm

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