‘EMBRACE
Mnafu’
Empowering
Mothers & Babies to Receive Adequate Care & Equality
Community development plan for Tunguli & Mnafu
With emphasis on the care of mothers and babies
The Problem
Berega Hospital serves a vast and
inaccessible territory of rural Tanzania with a population of 217,000. There
are 8,500 births/year, of which only 1000 occur in a health facility. Nearly 1
in 100 women die in each childbirth, and up to 10% of children do not reach
their fifth birthday.
The Vision
The vision is for trained Community
Health Workers (CHWs) to reach out, initially to the isolated communities of Tunguli
and Mnafu, working with the Traditional Birth Attendants, (TBAs), Village
health Workers (VHWs) and village leaders, to develop a systems for managing childbirth, family planning, immunisation,
child nutrition, and chronic conditions (eg malaria, anaemia, diarrhoea, TB,
infestations, & HIV). CHWs will also help improve collection of information
– eg demography, birth rate, etc.
Partnership
This project would a partnership
between the hospital, and the charities Ammalife, Hands4Africa, BREAD, Mission
Morogoro, and KOFIA.
Phase 1: Solid Base
Trained CHWs will engage with
community leaders, VHWs, TBAs, and mothers, to examine their problems, ideas,
potential solutions, and priorities in relation to pregnancy and childbirth; nutrition;
family planning; immunisation; and chronic disease.
Meanwhile, the charity Hands4Africa will
be enhancing transport, agriculture, and the building of a health / community
facility.
At the same time, the hospital will
be working to implement a new Charter of Standards, to prepare it for the
future influx of patients.
Phase 2: Making a
difference
CHWs will work with TBAs on safe
childbirth solutions, bringing selected women into Berega for birth.
Thereafter, the CHWs would try to enhance breast feeding, family planning,
immunisation, growth charting, under-5s nutrition, and prevention and treatment
of diarrhoea, malaria, worms, and other chronic conditions. This would be
centred at a purpose-built health and community facility.
Phase 3: Expanding
capacity
Berega will expand its School of
Nursing to train both front-line ‘medical’ staff, (‘Clinical Officers’) and
nurses/midwives. COs can deal with childbirth, family planning, and treatment
of disease.
Phase 4 – long term
The long-term vision is to learn
transferrable lessons, whilst creating an economically viable community, with
good health and educational facilities, and a lattice-work of COs, CHWs, VHWs
and TBAs working within a well-oiled mechanism for early transport of the needy
to high-tech facilities at Berega Hospital.
References
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