Last 11 November about 40 health care professionals - mostly family doctors/general practitioners participated in the first training of the project
On November 11, the Lithuanian colleagues of the HAPPY PATIENT project carried out their first intervention in the country.
During it, the communication materials made by the consortium were shared to promote the correct use of antibiotics by health professionals and from the perspective of patients.
Lithuania is the country we used as a «control» in the project, as it is an example of good practice in the prescription and use of antibiotics.
Our partner in the Baltic Republic is the family and community medicine clinic MANO SEIMOS GYDYTOJAS (FDC), with its representative Ruta Radzeviciene Jurgute.
The private office of family doctors “Mano seimos gydytojas” (My family doctor) was established by the family doctors in 2000 in Klaipeda. This clinic signed contract with the Lithuanian Governmental sick funds and thus functions as a unit of National health care system. Since the first years of practice this enterprise is among the leaders with the best results in Primary Care. The organization has been extended during the 20 years: from 2 to 19 GPs and 26 nurses at the moment.
Activities performed in this centre are based on principles of Family Medicine: accessibility, continuity, community orientation, coordination of care, gate keeping, list of patients for each GP with people of all age groups. Doctors and nurses are active not only in clinical activities, but also involved in teaching and learning process. The doctors have participated in HAPPY AUDIT project in 2006-2008 together with colleagues from EU countries, Argentina and Kaliningrad. The clinic has signed contract with Klaipeda University of cooperation in training health care professionals.
Ruta Radzeviciene Jurgute was involved in the collaboration projects since 1998 when a gradually increasing cooperation on Primary Care development has been established between Sweden, Lithuania and Russia through Blekinge FoU-enhet (BIR&D) / Blekinge county council; Klaipeda university, department of Public Health; and the Health administration in Kaliningrad oblast.
Cooperation projects have grown especially since 2002-2003, when the first course of retraining of family physicians / general practitioners took place in Kaliningrad oblast as a result of a Tacis project, where Rut Radzeviciene-Jurgute had a key role in preparation of the program and training the participants.
Our Lithuanian partner is involved in several tasks of the HAPPY PATIENT project and it is essential because it represents the country – Lithuania – which is an example to follow when it comes to the arbitrary prescription of antibiotics, as its levels contrast with those of the other 4 target countries (Spain, France, Greece and Poland). Among the tasks in which MANO SEIMOS GYDYTOJAS is participating, there are First Audit registrations and the Adaptation of APO templates to Secondary Care in the Target Countries.