The East Africa Physiotherapy scientific conference held in Mombasa on the 11th to the 13th of May was a huge success. It was organized by the Kenya Society of Physiotherapists Chaired by Mr. Henry Opondo and his supporting organizing committee consisting of Kenyan’s Finest Physios. Kenya had the biggest representation of Physiotherapists by virtue of it being the host country, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia were also represented at the conference with Uganda having the biggest representation amongst the countries present, missing in action was Reunion Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somaliland, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Mauritius Reunion. Traveling and costs incurred to attend such a conference is not cheap, and it has been a burden to Physiotherapists across the region to afford such conferences considering the low wages that they earn.
A lot of those in attendance receive support from the institutions they work for, especially those in private hospitals and well-established parastatal institutions or from pharmaceutical companies or companies that sell hospital and orthopedic equipment. A lot of times allocations of such funds are available to doctors since they are the subscribers of drugs sold by the companies. Another challenge experienced by The Physiotherapists is the aspect of letting a good number of staff go to such conferences for more than two working days without experiencing shortages and having to reschedule and inconvenience patients they attend to. Despite all these challenges and numerous others not to mention border control problems and several physiotherapists lacking passports, the conference managed to pull more than 120 Physiotherapists.
The Theme of the conference was Transforming Physiotherapy practice with a focus on recent trends in Physiotherapy Techniques and research. The sub themes of the conference were on Current Trends and Innovations in Physiotherapy and Excellence in Physiotherapy and Sports Rehabilitation.
The Congress commenced by opening remarks from senior government officials from the Ministry of Health, and the key leaders from the Kenya Society of Physiotherapists as well as the vice president world Physiotherapy Africa-Region. Most of what was highlighted and talked about was areas on evolving trends in Physiotherapy practice while highlighting the new technologies being utilized to improve standardization and patient outcomes. It is important to note that it has taken quite a number of years for government officials to grace Physiotherapy and other Rehabilitation related conferences, only recently have we seen a keen interest from the Government and the Ministry of health go up. This has been partly due to the first ever Rehabilitation conference that was held at the Kenya Institute of Professional Education last year. Also, keen to note is the hard work that was done by the previous and incumbent Chief Physiotherapists at the Ministry of Health, the Physiotherapy council team, Kenya Society of Physiotherapists as well as the hard-working individual Physiotherapists in different Institutions who have fought hard to bring the importance of Rehabilitation to the limelight.
The conference was well organized, a big improvement from previous conferences held in Kenya Day one consisted of different companies that had sponsored the conference talk to the audience about the products they sell. Companies in attendance were Juzo, AIIMed, Mullighan Rehab, Physical Therapy Services, Ottobock., Harley’s Limited, Arjo and many others. These Institutions have done a lot in supporting Rehabilitation centers, private and public Institutions as well as rural clinics that provide Rehabilitation services.
The rest of the day was crowned by different presentations from the speakers that included matters on Entrepreneurship in Physiotherapy , Ethics code of conduct and ethics for Physiotherapists where the audience di learn quite a lot business strategies for running Physiotherapy clinics, starting businesses and joining leadership and management positions across different health sectors, a lot was addressed as well on knowledge skills attitude and love for the profession in the most professional manner.
Other topics addressed on that day were a combination of patient centered-care, mental health hygiene for clinicians and caregivers, advances in evidence on the management of low-back pain, Neurorehabilitation in brain injury, and basic lymphoedema management and the breakaway sessions to crown the day of day one.
Day Two commenced on a high note, where matters addressed was Regional Cooperation, for a long time Physiotherapists in East Africa had a regional representation with officials from the different professional associations in the different countries. This had died a couple years ago.
Other matters addressed on day two were Implementation and results of the Physical medicine and rehabilitation development program that was well presented by the Burundi team. The Physiotherapy council of Kenya also shared progressions they had made in ensuring the Physiotherapy profession is well protected and represented in the Government as well as the Ministry of Health. Later in the day there were discussions on Innovations in Physiotherapy Education and the different advancement areas that Physiotherapists can explore as well as advanced Physiotherapy practices. Other exciting presentations were on Demystifying pelvic health and what physiotherapists need to know about treating pelvic dysfunctions. Other areas addressed were matters on Temporomandibular joint rehab as well as Physiotherapy management of vestibular disorders. This marked the end of the short course and hands on training.
The Final Day was crowned by the Deputy president World Physio Africa’s Priscilla Ondonga’s speech where a lot was mentioned on the importance of joining and having country representations in the world Physiotherapy body. Another area addressed was the aspects of collaboration and exchange programs within Africa and the rest of the world. She also encouraged the Physiotherapists in attendance to attend the World Physiotherapy congress scheduled for the 2-4th of June 2023.
The rest of the day was all about scientific papers presentations from different Physiotherapists from the attending countries with papers presented on musculoskeletal health, exercise prescription, levels of Physical activity Among people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy in Burundi , social dynamic factors in the management of low back pain and ergonomics and work related musculoskeletal injuries in Flower farm workers in Kenya.
The day ended with the Launch and Formulation of a new East Africa Physiotherapy association team inaugurated. This will see advances in collaboration on the growth of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation services across the East African countries, as the African saying goes, if you want to go far, walk alone, if you want to go far walk together.
This also did put a lot of emphasis on Ubuntu ‘’ we are, because they are, and together we can go far.
I did have conversations with the different Physiotherapists from across the region, there were certain areas of concern especially from the other regions. Kenya has so far made great strides on matters of education despite the glaring gaps existing still.
Physios would like to have more in-house Continuous medical/ Professional development training targeted towards improving their skills and knowledge within their departments since several of them can’t afford to go back to school.
There is a huge discrepancy in pricing of training in relation to salaries that the Physiotherapists get.
I do have solutions to that. We can discuss this when we meet.
Also, areas of concern were advanced training areas that the different clinicians wanted.
This included clinical reasoning, manual therapy techniques, oncology rehab, geriatric rehab, diagnostic physiotherapy, strength and conditioning, leadership in physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and other specialty areas of Physio.
What came to mind as well was having a reasoning reform and responsibility conference for East Africa.
This will provide an avenue to welcome Physios from abroad who can come to such conferences to train in their specialty areas.
I was also looking at having the World Health Innovation Summit In partnership with other institutions from the UK bring in specialists that will train a selected group of Physios who have special interests in those areas so that they can be the ones championing specific advancements in the specialty areas.
Also Ben, on matters Hydrotherapy, I have made a number of Advancements on matters Hydrotherapy in relation to identifying the different stakeholders to be involved, from policy makers to institutions that have Hydrotherapy units, we have drafted the letter , in the process of making online questionnaires on the need of the training and why there should be an institute of Training, from the discussions Kise is already and instate so it will house the training center, the good thing is that the institute is a semi autonomous government institution.
We will talk more on this in our next meeting.
Otieno Martin Ong’wen
Orthopedic Manual Therapist ,
Movement Dysfunction Specialist,
Physiotherapist.
WHIS Expert Group MSK
