UN, WHO Primary Health Care Award recognizes the achievements of the Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance in primary care

UN, WHO Primary Health Care Award recognizes the achievements of the Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance in primary care

An innovative program between the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) Department of Family Medicine and the Lesotho Ministry of Health will be launched today by the United Nations (UN) at the annual meeting of the Friends of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.

The program, the Lesotho-Boston Health Alliance (LeBoHA), is designed to enable students from Lesotho, South Africa, who are pursuing their medical studies abroad to return to their home country to complete their residency and remain there. The aim is to improve the doctor-patient relationship for Lesotho and train leaders for the public health infrastructure.

The award, presented by the 2022 UN Interagency Task Force and the World Health Organization (WHO) Special Program on Primary Health Care Award, recognizes LeBoHA's achievements in strengthening Lesotho's health system by providing context-specific primary health care training to community-level health providers.

The award recognizes LeBoHA's role in providing an exemplary platform for primary health care professionals to collaborate and collectively strengthen action across Europe, including advocating for ever stronger, fairer and more equitable primary health care. This year, the Task Force joins forces with the WHO Special Program on Primary Health Care, expanding the awards program to recognize work in primary health care for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.

I am humbled by this honor. I want to thank all of our members who made this award possible and who continue to work to make our program a model for health care in low-income countries.”

Brian Jack, MD, professor of family medicine at BUSM and director of LeBoHA

The partnership between BUSM's Department of Family Medicine and the Ministry of Health of Lesotho, South Africa began in 2003 and has resulted in the development of an innovative Family Medicine residency program in Lesotho that is now fully accredited, self-sustaining and led by a single graduate of the program. This residency was designed to give people from Lesotho who need to leave the country to study medicine the opportunity to return for residency training and remain in their community. All graduates of the program have remained in Lesotho to practice, which has improved the country's doctor-patient ratio, trained leaders and strengthened the public health infrastructure.

Source:

Boston University School of Medicine

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