18th June, 2010
The AMREF team attending the Women Deliver Conference in Washington DC showcased the organisation’s work in maternal health and safe motherhood at a public seminar organised by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) on Thursday, June 10. The discussions were coordinated by Sarah Kambou, ICRW’s Chief Executive Officer, and attended by a cross-section of people based in the US capital and involved in health and health development.
Dr John Nduba, AMREF’s Director for Reproductive and Child Health, gave an overview of AMREF’s approach to health development, and in particular its focus on maternal and child health as a priority to achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. He said that while some regions of the world have made progress in reducing maternal mortality, it is still high in Africa, largely because of weak health systems.
Presenting a summary of findings from an assessment of health facilities in East Africa in regard to safe motherhood, Dr Nduba cited various causes of the high maternal mortality in Africa, ranging from low delivery levels in health facilities because of poor access, poverty and women’s lack of empowerment, to lack of trust in the health system, low staffing levels and weak supervisory support for health facilities.
The assessment was conducted by AMREF’s Outreach Programme, led by Dr Johnson Musomi in 17 districts in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania with the ultimate aim of strengthening health systems to increase use of safe motherhood and obstetric fistula services in East Africa. Caused mainly by obstructed labour, obstetric fistulas are a major problem in East Africa. AMREF surgeon Dr Weston Khisa listed the contributing factors to the problem including early marriage, poverty, female genital mutilation, low literacy levels and poor infrastructure.
Most victims of obstetric fistula live in remote and rural areas where there is no access to treatment, explained Dr Khisa, and AMREF has been trying to fill this gap by taking obstetric fistula repair services to such areas. Surgeons are deployed to rural hospitals, where they operate on patients and train local doctors and nurses on treatment and care of such patients. AMREF has also built a ‘centre of excellence’ at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi where it trains surgeons to carry out the repairs.
But while AMREF has helped many women to regain their dignity and reconstruct their lives, Dr Khisa pointed out that there is an overwhelming need for fistula repair services that cannot be met with the current shortage of qualified surgical personnel.
Angela Nguku, who heads AMREF’s Virtual Nursing School, highlighted AMREF’s innovative use of eLearning to avert the health worker crisis in the country by speeding up training of nurses.
“Lack of skills and the limited number of health personnel is a big challenge to health service delivery in Kenya and other parts of Africa,” said Angela. “Nurses cannot perform research or manage health services, yet it is they who run many health facilities, especially in the rural areas. With the limited number of classrooms and the length of time it takes to train nurses, eLearning enables students to learn while they work, without having to take time away from their workplaces, where their services are greatly needed.”
Following the success of the eLearning programme in Kenya, AMERF is now supporting the setting up of similar programmes in Uganda, Zambia, Swaziland and Lesotho, said Angela.
Other AMREF staff at the meeting included Betsy Kovacs Director of External Affairs for AMREF in USA, Josephine Lesiamon, Project Manager, Maternal Newborn and Child Health in Magadi, Kenya, and Alemayehu Seifu, AMREF’s deputy Country Director in Ethiopia.
