BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
“Imagine a world without useless wastes of money and with a concrete development for all the communities of developing countries. Imagine a world where expatriates earn the same salary of locals, where health services are free to everyone, where funds from donor community and international funding agencies are really destined to the final beneficiaries and they will produce finally some results. We are living in a completely different world”.
These are the words of Dr. Mario Bacchiocchi, executive director of Centre of Health Education and Health Appropriate Technologies (CESTAS), an Italian-Malawian non-governmental organization, which has joined government efforts in the promotion of safe motherhood, fighting drug and alcohol abuse, among other programmes.
Bacchiocchi notes that during his time in Africa, he has noted some NGOs, which have invested a lot of money in projects with less benefit to the lives of the intended beneficiaries. This represents how huge amounts of public resources are being wasted and mismanaged.
While most of the local NGOs are operating in urban areas, their services are desperately needed in the rural areas where a larger population is illiterate. Women of the child-bearing ages need information on life-saving antenatal care.
Women in the villages rarely seek professional help during pregnancy. There are several factors that deter them from doing so.
Often they lack the time to visit health centers. Access to professional healthcare is a nightmare for many people in the rural areas because of lack of health centres in such places.
The situation sometimes forces determined women to spend almost all the day walking to the nearby health centre to seek professional antenatal care services.
In some instances, lack of knowledge on the importance of such services also contributes to women’s failure to seek professional help during pregnancy.
Improvements in local health care play a central role in reducing African child mortality rates and preserving mothers' lives. But making these improvements will require bringing information and training to local communities, mothers, and healthcare providers across the country.
CESTAS boss believes this cannot be the case if the civil society joined government in mobilizing and implementing safe motherhood programmes.
In some countries like Nigeria, through traditional dances and songs, the civil society managed to attract women to their consultation areas, where they deliver messages on the importance of seeking antenatal care services during pregnancy.
In Bacchiocchi’s thinking, men can also meet with healthcare personnel, who could be conducting on-site routine checks, dispense drugs, provide reproductive health and family planning information, and make referrals to health centers as necessary.
Settings such as markets and community centres can also allow for outreach to all community members, including adolescents, mothers and fathers.
“There is a huge necessity to be focused on specific intervention and to be able to have the needed continuity and long-term action without jumping from one program to another just because of available funds or institutional opportunities,” says he.
“I never understand why other organizations are not partnering with government in the fight against maternal and neonatal deaths. I have often approached the donor community on this issue, but rarely do they seem interested to fund projects of such nature,” mourns Bacchiocchi.
With funding from UNICEF, CESTAS has managed to introduce and maintain in-service training courses for midwives and health workers who work at Bwaila and Kamuzu Central Hospitals in Lilongwe and Dowa District Hospital in Dowa.
These courses have helped health workers in improving the delivery of essential maternal and neonatal care to their clients.
“CESTAS attaches greater importance to the training of health personnel for them to provide quality healthcare to the patients,” says Bacchiocchi.
“We ensure there is on-going in-service training for all midwives and health operators at Bwaila, Dowa and KCH through different training curricula, which have been designed by the same target group in collaboration with the Reproductive Health Unit (RHU) and the Lilongwe and Dowa’s District Health Offices (DHOs),” he adds.
And with support from UNICEF CESTAS intends to extend its outreach and training activities to Community Rural Health Centres in selected Zones of Lilongwe District.
The organization will has also signed an agreement with the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa that will see KCH, Bwaila and Dowa hospitals receiving a donation of motorcycle ambulances.
END
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