TİKA Supports Tajikistan’s Maternal and Child Health Program

Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) provided advanced hearing screening devices in the last phase of the “Support for Maternal and Child Health Program,” which has been carried out in Tajikistan for 2 years and aims to share Turkey’s experience in newborn hearing screening with Tajikistan.

In the first phase of the program, 33 doctors selected by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Tajikistan from different parts of the country were trained by 4 specialists from Turkey in newborn hearing screening tests in 2018.

A delegation of 8 people consisting of pediatricians and ENT specialists who had been successful in the training program was sent to Turkey and received advanced training in the next phase.

The third phase included the delivery of hearing screening devices to hospitals in 4 different regions where Tajik doctors who were trained in Turkey worked.

In the last phase of the program, the Clinical BERA devices needed for further testing of babies who were found to suffer from hearing loss after the tests performed in hospitals in different regions were delivered to Shifobahsh Hospital, which is located in the capital, Dushanbe, and is the largest hospital of Tajikistan. Thanks to these devices, it will now be possible to determine the degree of hearing loss in babies and decide how they should be treated.