East Timor Epilepsy Project
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News and Updates
November 2008
The ETEP report presented at the AGM can be downloaded here [PDF 30KB].
From the ESA Winter 2008 Newsletter
In March, Oscar Alvarez, a Spanish neuropsychiatry registrar at Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Ernie Somerville conducted epilepsy workshops with the Cuban Medical Brigade in three towns in East Timor. Oscar did a great job of breaking the ice and his language skills were indispensible. The Cuban doctors were extremely enthusiastic and eager to learn. There are about 300 Cuban doctors in East Timor on 2-year rotations. There are also 600 Timorese students at medical schools in Cuba.
From the ESA Summer 2008 Newsletter
The security situation in East Timor and an interruption to AusAID funding impacted on the ESA visits and training during 2007. However, the country is now more peaceful, and with a further year of AusAID funding to
supplement the ESA funding, a full timetable of training visits is scheduled for 2008. An epilepsy workshop with the Cuban doctors working in East Timor has also been agreed to. It is anticipated that the ETEP will be completed in 2009. The Society extends thanks to Ernie Somerville and his neurologist and nursing colleagues for undertaking this much needed training in an underdeveloped neighbouring country.
From the ESA Spring 2007 Newsletter
The East Timor Epilepsy Project continues, with the last nurse training and community leader workshops held in the mountain village of Aileu, under the watchful eye of the Australian Army, who decided to pitch their camp in the grounds of the fire station where the community leader workshops were being held.
From the ESA Winter 2007 Newsletter
The recent unrest [in East Timor] has interrupted training and the supply of medication, with only two training and two community education visits in the last 12 months. Some of the mental health nurses, who supply the general nurses with carbamazepine and valproate have fled their posts and the co-ordinator is unable to visit some districts. Our former co-ordinator's house was desroyed and she had her baby in an IDP camp in the grounds of the hospital, while the current co-ordinator has been unable to return to his house in Dili and is renting in a "safe" suburb. There are now 300 Cuban doctors posted to East Timor and the project plans to carry out some epilepsy workshops with them over the next year.