The Edinburgh Global Health Academy, a medical education arm of University of Edinburgh, has collaborated with Helping Hand Foundation, a city-based NGO, to understand the inequities in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Edinburgh Futures Institute and Global Health Academy is collaborating with different stakeholders, including public health experts, NGOs and the medical fraternity. The academy educators conducted tutorials for the undergraduate medical students from the live discussions through the video feeds on the health inequities encountered during the pandemic in some of the low-income countries. The video recordings of the online discussions with HHF were very well received by the undergraduate students at Edinburgh University who are completing a course on Global Challenges said Dr. Jenny Reid, Course lead and coordinator at Edinburgh Futures Institute and the Global Health Academy.
He said that the university is collaborating with Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, Public Health experts in SE Asian Countries like Singapore and an NGO in Hyderabad, India to put together the module that will help the undergraduate students get a broad understanding on the inequalities in the COVID-19 pandemic, that will help them make informed choices about the future needs in public health policy in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Students came up with lots of ideas in response to the tutorials. We asked them to think about what they would include on a poster to educate people who may be illiterate about Coronavirus and to try and reduce the stigma around the virus,” said Professor Liz Grant, Head of Global Head Academy, Edinburgh University.
“What was of interest to the medical educators at Edinburgh was the medical relief services like Home Isolation care which the NGO provided to over 5,000 patients and delivered seamless online consultations by a competent team of doctors and took some of the health services to the doorstep like provisioning O2 supplies, labs and medicines,” said Mujtaba Hasan Askari of Helping Hand Foundation.
