Senior Programme Officer

Senior Programme Officer | Ramallah, West Bank

Medical Aid for Palestinians MAP-UK, works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. MAP is seeking to employ a highly skilled staff to work as a Senior Programme Officer to be based at MAP’s Ramallah office.

Job Title : Senior Programme Officer (60% WTE)

Location : Ramallah, West Bank

MAP Purpose : MAP works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation or as refugees

Job Scope : This role will focus on overseeing the implementation of MAP’s family medicine project. The Senior Programme Officer will also contribute to the monitoring of MAP’s others projects in the West bank  

Reporting To : Director of Programmes (West Bank), and to Director of Programmes (London) for technical issues related to the family medicine project

Key Internal Relationships : DoP (West Bank); DoP (London); staff in West Bank office; Programme Officer UK

Key External Relationships : Ministry of Health; An Najah University; Foundation for the International Development of Family Medicine in Palestine (FIDFMP); MAP’s partner organisations; National NGOs; INGOs; UN and development agencies

Contract type : Temporary for 6 months (with possibility of Extension)

Background

Palestine has a well-established Primary Health Care (PHC) system. However, the evolving health challenges of the 21st century (an aging population and spiralling rates of non-communicable diseases and mental health problems) together with the increasing costs of specialist services require adaptation of Palestine’s PHC service delivery model toward a family medicine/practice approach to provide continuous, comprehensive, coordinated, person and family-centred care, with a multidisciplinary team responsible for delivery of services to a defined population.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) has expressed its commitment to implement such a transformation. However, moving toward this new model requires changes at various levels, including the training of family medicine specialists, changes in the organisation and infrastructure of PHC services, and orientation of existing PHC staff toward family practice principles and the modified service delivery model.
An-Najah University has been delivering a part-time, four-year, post-graduate residency programme for family medicine specialists for a number of years – the only one in Palestine. To date there are 14 Board certified graduates of the programme, with a further two doctors currently waiting to sit the Palestine Medical Council (PMC) Board certification examination and nine residents at various stages of the four-year training programme. There is an urgent need to substantially strengthen the programme’s educational curriculum and in particular to improve the quality of clinical training placements for the family medicine residents. Even more importantly there are over 800 GPs, and an even greater number of nurses, pharmacists, midwives and laboratory technicians, currently working in MoH and UNRWA PHC centres in the West Bank without any specialist training in family medicine or family practice. Experience from elsewhere in the world suggests that it could take over 20 years for the entire PHC workforce to complete full specialty training programmes, so it is vital that an appropriately tailored transitional training programme is offered in the short term to the existing workforce to raise standards of care across the region and support the desire of MoH and UNWRA to transform the delivery of services. This in turn will make a huge contribution to the MoH and World Health Organisation (WHO) goal of achieving universal health coverage.
At the heart of the proposed project will be three MoH family medicine training centres, situated in the north, middle and south of the West Bank; with appropriate support these centres will significantly improve the quality of training provided for family medicine residents and provide the perfect environment to pilot the necessary PHC system changes and to deliver the face to face components of the transitional training programme.

Job Purpose

-To serve as project officer for MAP’s family medicine project, which aims to develop family medicine in Palestine through the education, training and in-service mentoring of medical school graduates and MoH doctors, and key reforms in the system of primary health care.  
-To manage some of MAP’s other West Bank projects and ensure their adherence to international health standards and planned goals and objectives.

Specific Areas of Responsibility
 
Oversee the family medicine project including:

-Liaising and communicating with all project stakeholders and participants to ensure activities are being implemented on time, as per the agreed work plan.
-Organizing and assisting visiting individuals and delegations of doctors from the UK.
-Supporting regular stakeholder coordination meetings in the West Bank; including the preparation of meeting agendas and minutes.
-Regular liaison with family medicine residents and graduates, and in-country coordination of online and face-to-face educational activities.
-Drafting of internal and donor required project reports and related grant application.

-Manage some of MAP’s other West Bank projects, ensuring objectives are achieved, financial procedures are strictly adhered to, budgets are closely monitored and financial and narrative reports are produced as required.
-Conduct visits to project sites and partners and support to partner organisations in the implementation of projects including capacity building for partners to ensure effective management of projects
-Keep abreast of developments in the health sector in Palestine and keep up-to-date with the work of other health sector stakeholders including the MoH, national and international NGOs and the UN.

Person Specification

Essential requirements

-A good first degree in a health-related subject (nursing, medicine, midwifery, pharmacy etc.)
-A postgraduate degree in public health or a related subject.
-At least five years’ work experience within the Palestinian health sector.
-At least two years’ health project management experience.
-Familiarity with the functioning of the Ministry of Health, the primary health care system in the West Bank and the work of the major health care providers in the West Bank including international and national NGOs.
-Good project management skills including drafting proposals, reports and conducting monitoring and evaluation of health projects.
-Excellent spoken and written Arabic and English.
-Good interpersonal, communication and networking skills and the ability to work successfully with multiple external and internal partners.
-Good IT skills particularly in Word and Excel.
-Prepared and able to travel frequently around the West Bank.

Desirable requirements

-Experience working with volunteers and/or foreign delegations.
-Knowledge of the medical education and specialist training system in Palestine.
-Experience of creating and managing simple databases (Excel or Access).

 

Application procedure and deadline

Candidates should download and fill the application form at the following link:
 

Application Form



and send it to

[email protected]

by 17:00 GMT on 2nd April 2016.  Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview.


 

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