Written by
Alex Harsha - Infotechnology
Coordinator.
The first few months
of 2010 have been an exciting time for the
Mali
Health Organizing Project, and we are looking
forward to a great year
with a new clinic and community health worker
pilot underway!
We are thrilled to announce that the grand
opening of the Centre de
Sante Communautaire de Sikoro-Sourakabougou
(CSCOMSISOU) took place on
Saturday, April 10, 2010. The community clinic
construction began in
December 2008, and the doors opened to patients
unofficially last
month. Located several kilometers from paved
road, but right next to
the market and school in Sourakabougou, this
six-room clinic is located
to maximize accessibility to the least served
residents of the city. In
addition, we have partnered with the
Association de Sante Communautaire
de Sikoro-Sourakabougou (ASACOSISOU), the
clinic's governing board, to
develop this clinic as an trial site for
innovative health-financing
and technological interventions to improve
health access and to reduce
child morbidity and mortality.
The need for this clinic is clear -- and it
has been demonstrated
time and again in the few short weeks since the
doors first opened in
March. Before CSCOMSISOU opened, for example,
pregnant mothers of
Sourakabougou have often had to walk more than
5km to the nearest
health facility, stopping to rest between
contractions. To avoid giving
birth on the way, mothers are told to carry
rocks on their heads or in
their skirts! For this reason, many women opt
to give birth at home
without the presence of a skilled birth
attendant or physician, thus
dramatically increasing the risk to themselves
and their newborn child.
Thanks to our clinic, pregnant women will no
longer have to face this
choice during labor. We welcomed more than
twelve babies in our first
few weeks of operation, and we expect to see
many many more in the
weeks to come.
Jointly organized by MHOP, our Community
Health Action Group, and
the ASACOSISOU, the grand opening was attended
by more than 300
community members and included fantastic
speeches, a ribbon-cutting, a
clinic walk-through, and a traditional
folkloric dance performance. In
addition to community members, invitees such as
the Mayor of Bamako
Commune I, the Director General of the Ministry
of Health's e-Health
office, the health advisor to the President,
community dignitaries, and
even the clinic's first newborn baby were
present to celebrate this
incredible achievement. More than twenty-five
years after the Malian
government approved this site for the
construction of a community
clinic, we are excited to begin providing
health care to the more than
60,000 residents of this under-served
community. We would also like to
take this opportunity to express our gratitude
to all of our generous
supporters, without whom this clinic would not
have become a reality.
You had no small part in making this happen,
and we thank you.
MHOP is also very excited to announce the
commencement of Action
for Health, our innovative health-financing and
community health worker
initiative that will offer free care and
preventative education to more
than 220 families (350 children under the age
of five) in return for
participation in volunteer health activities.
Leona Rosenblum, Action
for Health program coordinator, gave a
refresher training to our 11
community health workers in February and they
began visiting our target
families in March. At each visit, the health
workes evaluate children
under the age of five for signs of serious
illness or malnutrition,
accompanying sick children to the clinic where
they receive free
treatment for symptoms related to the four
major childhood killers:
malaria, respiratory infections, diarrhea and
malnutrition. To date,
our CHWs have made more than 700 home
visits.
In the next month, we begin the second
phase of the Action for
Health program by launching a mobile medical
record program that will
allow our health workers to send and receive
patient status updates via
text messages. The SMS data will be organized
into a lightweight
medical records system at the clinic, allowing
the physicians to enter
observation and treatment data at the point of
care, and send follow-up
instructions to the patient's health worker.
The program will
dramatically improve the current standard of
care by offering
physicians access to complete medical histories
and improving
continuity of care between our health workers
and clinic staff.
Selected by the Ministry of Health's e-Health
office as a priority
intervention, we will be further developing the
system in partnership
with their team.
With
all of these great achievements already under
our belts, 2010 is
promising to be a fantastic year for the Mali
Health Organizing
Project. We are extraordinarily grateful to all
of our supporters,
without whom this work would not be possible.
If you are interested in
learning more about our programs, please visit
our project pages on our website
www.malihealth.org, or
contact Anna Ninan, Executive Director at
anna@malihealth.org. Thank
you again for all you do!
