Physical Health Benin Project #47466

Hands for life: Neonatology for newborns in Benin

by ALEIMAR - Voluntary Organization

Hands for life: Neonatology for newborns in Benin

Project Report | May 25, 2022
Join our monitoring trip to Benin!

By Francesca Pellegatta | Junior Project Manager

Dear Donors,
Aleimar and our local partner, the pediatric hospital Fatebenefratelli “The Embrace”, have never stopped working for the neonatology department in Tanguietà. Monitoring the growth of premature or underweight infants, as well as assuring the necessary treatments to pregnant women, is the key to guarantee their healthy development. With this report we want to make all of you part of the monitoring trip that has stated today, the 25th of May. Our President, our Counsellor, our Country Manager together with our Project Leader are now travelling to Benin in order to supervise all the projects that we are running in the Country.

The hospital “The Embrace” has been collaborating with the near health centre of Kpossegan for many months. With our project we are working in order to transform the dispensary into a maternity centre that will help a lot of mothers and new-borns. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 emergency and to new legislative provisions, the project has been subject to a setback. New Beninese laws foresee a complex bureaucratic process to make private centres recognised by the State.

The awareness activity promoted by the young midwife Nathalie has started to give its results till the introduction of the new laws and a lot of women and children have been supported in our structure before and after childbirth. For this reason, our action cannot stop! We are coworking with our local partner in order to tie stronger relations with the health authorities, to obtain the ministerial recognition and to improve our precious service. With our monitoring trip we will try to increase our advocacy activity. With your help we will guarantee a quality support to a lot of women and babies during the most crucial period of their life.

Thank you!

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Jan 25, 2022
A little gem in Sokponta!

By Debora De Siero | Project Leader

Our volunteer Piero Buffa finally left last October to visit our centers in Benin and to operate some children with complex cardiac anomalies. He went to Benin for a month to dedicate 15 days to operate children and adults at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Tanguieta. He also visited our neonatology department and he said that “it’s a little gem”! He reported us in his travel diary that the facility is operational and fully equipped. When he visited the center there weren’t many children but he referred us that several children present challenging cases.

The Republic of Benin is an extremely poor country characterized by a lack of health services. The only hospital center who can offer constant assistance and care is "The Embrace" in Sokponta. Unfortunately, it can’t offer enough services for everyone. Due to COVID-19 spread the situation is more alarming and pregnant women are the most affected by this situation.

By CIA World Factbook 2020 with respect to the enfant mortality rate in Benin, each year 59 out of 100 children do not survive their first year or die at childbirth. It also must be considered that a lot of women die during childbirth or because of post-partum complications.

Thanks to you support we will change this situation! We are planning the opening of a new maternity unit to support mothers during and after childbirth. In our centre we will take care of mothers and newborns from the beginning of pregnancy to childbirth moment. For this reason, we need your support in order to guarantee a safe pregnancy and life for mothers and babies. Our fully equipped Center will provide health care services to mothers in need. With this goal, we expect the recruiting of several specialists to follow each pregnancy stages.

We are sure that we can count on you to make this dream come true! Once again we would sincerely thank you for your future support.

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Sep 23, 2021
LET'S BRIGHTEN THE FUTURE OF THE CHILDREN OF KPOSS

By Ilaria Ventura | Project Leader

The pandemic seems under control in the region, there are signs of improvement thanks to the administration of the first dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to which the population responded with good results. As of today, according to the WHO, the total number of confirmed cases is about 21,450, while the deaths are 146, the number of vaccine doses administered is 214,396.
A sore note to make is that the 20th of October our project manager, Antonio Carettoni, together with the president of Aleimar and one of our volunteers and photographer, were to set off to visit the project in Benin but because of Italian directives regarding covid-19 they had to postpone the trip in February hoping for an easing of the restrictions.

Luckly, Piero Buffa, one of the co-responsible members of this project who is a pediatric surgeon at the Gaslini Hospital in Genova, will depart the 4th of October for a month to dedicate 15 days to operate children and adults at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Tanguieta, and the other 15 days he’ll visit our centers and the families who we’re supporting through the project.

No matter the hard times the pandemic brought, our local representatives managed positively our projects and follow closely the kids. All the acknowledgments go to Chiara Pasian, who has been our lighthouse in Benin for over 15 years. Indeed, the project to build a unit of neonatology in the hospital of Sokponta reached its goal and it’s already working. Sensibilization activities to support childbirth, pre and post-natal care are kept going thanks to an obstetrician kindly made available by the Sokponta Hospital L’abbraccio, who visits families and in case of urgencies sends mothers to the unit. There, babies born with malformations, infections or underweight will be monitored.

The next project, which will start after all the documentation needed by the Government is completed, is to renew the dispensary that Aleimar built in 2007 in Kpossegan to create a small maternity unit that will also take care of the population of near villages and will promote prevention on hygiene, health and nutrition. In 2020 we already carried out weekly meetings in 7 villages to help mothers prepare for childbirth.
Last but not least, we want to thank profusely all of our donors, with your kindness from the 1st of June until the 20th of September 2021, Aleimar collected 371 USD$!

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