Dubbed LEMIC, the ‘Lived Experiences of Migrating Informal Caregivers in a Tertiary Health Facility: Understanding and action for health systems improvement in Nigeria’ project is a research study that is funded by CARTA through the program’s re-entry grants. The funding, awarded to CARTA graduate, Dr. Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo is to the tune of $50,000 and is among 15 postdoctoral fellowships that were awarded to CARTA graduates in mid-2022.
On October 17, 2022, the LEMIC project was officially flagged off with an inception and familiarisation meeting. The meeting was held at the Oladele Ajose Building, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. During the meeting, the project team engaged the university and hospital stakeholders on the overall aim of the project and garnered feedback on the research which seeks to explore how internally migrating caregivers experience hospital facilities while providing support to hospitalized patients.
Some of the attendees included Dr. Funke Fayehun (Chair of the CARTA Board, co-Focal Person of CARTA at the University of Ibadan, and current Head of the Department of Sociology); Dr. Molatokunbo Olutayo (Director of the Institute of African Studies); Prof Adesola Olumide (Researcher and Consultant Community Physician, Institute of Child Health and Director of the College of Medicine, Research and Innovation Management – CRIM); Dr. Oludayo Tade (Department of Sociology); Dr. Obaro Michael (Deputy Chairman – Research, Medical Advisory Committee – CMAC, University College Hospital), and Dr. Isaiah Ojo from the Office of the Director of Administration, University College Hospital.
In her remarks during the meeting, Dr. Fayehun discussed the work of CARTA at Ibadan, particularly the contributions of the Consortium towards building advanced research capacity of doctoral researchers, staff training, institutionalization of innovations, collaborations, research, infrastructural supports, and many others. She explained that being a highly competitive grant, CARTA’s re-entry grant supports innovative ideas with potential to impact public and population health and quality health systems functioning and effectiveness.
Other participants praised the team for sharing their proposal but offered critical comments and recommendations, largely on methodological plans and ethical considerations. The project team promised to reflect on and integrate as much of the input as possible.
The implementation of the LEMIC project will be led by Kudus as the PI. He will have support from the co-PI, Dr. Mofeyisara Omobowale of the Institute of Child Health, Prof Ayodele Samuel Jegede of the Department of Sociology – the internal mentor and Prof Sharon Fonn (CARTA Co-Director) of the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa – the external mentor. Rukayat Usman, a graduate student at the Institute of African Studies, is the Project Assistant.
