Two leaders were chosen, Louis Ako-Egbe, District Medical Officer of the Bangem Health District, South West Region, Cameroon; and Wafa Allouche, Client Relationship Manager in the National Authority for Accreditation in Healthcare INAsanté, Tunisia.

Louis Ako-Egbe
Healthcare void of quality is like chaff squeezed out of wheat. I have been very concerned about the quality of healthcare in my country and becoming an ISQua Emerging Leader 2018, with the plethora of opportunities ahead of me, is just a dream come true. I expect that this programme will equip me with contemporary knowledge, skills and tools for quality improvement (QI) in healthcare, health facility accreditation and QI research and teaching.

 

At the hospital level where I worked I implemented practical hand and hospital hygiene practices which revolutionised the patient care especially postoperative care. The rate of postoperative infections experienced a drastic drop and so did the average length of stay of the patients.

 

As a OMO I realized that there was high maternal and child mortality at the peripheral health centres either due to un-indicated augmentation of labour or delay in referrals to the District hospital. So I trained the health centre nurses on the use of portograms and prohibited them from carrying out inductions or augmentations of labour in their centres, while providing them with adequate tools for referrals. These resulted to a zero maternal/infant mortality rate at the health centres.

Wafa Allouche
Being awarded as ISQua Emerging Leader for 2018, is a great opportunity for me and my organisation (INAsanté). Within the Emerging Leader Programme, I will have the chance to do an internship within the department of service delivery and safety in the WHO Headquarters, but also to spend time with some leading organisations in health care quality and safety.

 

I will learn and gain experience from each activity, and I will be able to transfer Knowledge, ideas and skills on quality improvement. It is a mean of advancing quality in healthcare in Tunisia. I hope I could influence the implementation of the National Strategy for the Improvement of the Healthcare Quality and Safety, which is being developed currently.

I want to make a difference to the national healthcare system and the real experiences of patients. I trust that caring for patients is not a matter of providing healthcare but it’s a matter of providing effective, safe and person-centred healthcare.

I am proud because one of my dreams is becoming reality. I am a Tunisian medical doctor. During the Tunisian revolution in 2011, I was following my internship in the National Center of Gynaecology-obstetrics of Tunis. In the night of the 14th of January 2011, I saw new babies coming to the life, to a new Tunisian reality considered from that night more free, more tolerant and more fair.

 

From this moment I made a wish: to make things better in my country, for my nation and for all the coming generations in all fields but especially concerning healthcare, a domain which I know very well and where great progress can be achieved. Becoming an ISQua Emerging Leader 2017-2018, is an opportunity for me, for my organisation and for my country.

 

Having the possibility to take part in an internship in the WHO quality service would be very beneficial for my organisation and for the strategic decisions we will make in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Health and the promotion of the quality in healthcare organisations.