Maternal and Child Health Clinics

Village conducts public health to promote the welfare of the entire population, to protect it from the spread of infectious diseases and help to ensure access to safe and quality health care to benefit the population.

Due to the proximity of health facilities, mothers must walk long distances to access health facilities. Community-based Maternal and Child Health Clinics are conducted in central community locations or homes to ensure clinics are geographically accessible to the underserved populations of Tharaka Nithi County with four significant components working hand in hand: Educate, Prevent, Treat, and Advise. Mothers and caregivers are educated on family planning, nutrition, breastfeeding, fever, blood pressure, hypertension, malaria prevention, hygiene and sanitation, tuberculosis, and pneumonia.

Our teams conduct mobile maternal child health clinics in the community using the village-based approach. A group comprising one nurse, three community health officers, and one community health volunteer teamed up to provide these services in the CHV's village. The target population is pregnant women and under-five children within that village.

HopeCore's Village-based MCHs help bridge the access gap to essential maternal and child health services. We also run a static clinic at our premises for walk-in clients. Our goal is to reduce maternal and neonatal child mortality and morbidity for the underserved population in Mwimbi and Muthambi Sub-counties through health education to mothers, nutritional assessment (growth monitoring) for children under five years, malaria prevention interventions, Vitamin A supplementation, deworming, and access to free treatment services for children under five years and their mothers.

In 2022, HopeCore continued to provide these life-saving interventions to the most vulnerable women and children in rural Tharaka Nithi County.

Additionally, our Maternal Child Health program was recognized as the 3^rd best intervention in Kenya for its efforts in reducing infant and maternal mortality during the 2022 Quality Health Care Awards.

Vitamin A helps to boost a child’s health and immune function and reduces child morbidity and mortality. In 2022, we provided 7,665 children with Vitamin A supplementation.

Regular growth monitoring helps determine growth trends, height, weight, etc., and helps address nutrition issues and manage them early enough. We conducted growth monitoring of 16,800 children in 2022.

Untreated parasitic worms can lead to malnutrition. Deworming helps a child absorb crucial nutrients, thus contributing to overall health and well-being. 7,838 dewormers were provided to children under five years in 2022.

7,024 children received treatment for various illnesses, 7,664 parents/caregivers were educated, and 1,391 received family planning services.

CONCLUSION

With the rising cost of healthcare in Kenya, the need for quality healthcare services and products is on the rise,e specially for the vulnerable and marginalized communities in Tharaka Nithi County. We are grateful for your generous donation, which helped save a mother and a child in rural areas of Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya.

Village HopeCore International works to eradicate poverty and build healthy communities through Public Health and Micro Enterprise interventions. HopeCore’s mission is to empower Kenyan and Sub-Saharan African communities to eradicate poverty and improve family health. We are passionate about improving health in the developing world by focusing on preventive healthcare.

Community-based MCH Clinics are conducted in central community locations or homes to ensure clinics are geographically accessible with four significant components working hand in hand: Educate, Prevent, Treat, and Advise. Mothers and caregivers were educated on family planning, nutrition, breastfeeding, fever, soap and WaterGuard, blood pressure, hypertension, malaria prevention, hygiene and sanitation, tuberculosis, and pneumonia.

We have continued to reach out to the most vulnerable in our community to provide free healthcare in their communities. We have provided Vitamin A to 2,150 children, conducted growth monitoring to 4,998 under-five children, and educated 4,010 mothers and caregivers. Mass deworming in schools has immediate health benefits; it improves nutrition uptake in children, reduces absenteeism by 25%, and improves academic attainment (NSBDP,2019. We have dewormed 2,171children,

Success story

Our village-based maternal and child health clinic visited the Kariakomo community unit in May this year. Lynjoy Kawira, age 7, was brought for treatment by her mother. Lynjoy's ear was swollen, and she had trouble hearing. Due to her sickness and the stigma that resulted in other pupils avoiding her, she was forced to drop out of school. She also had a terrible academic performance due to her condition. Day by day, the situation was becoming worse. She underwent an examination by our community health nurse Marvin Mutugi who referred her to see an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) specialist at Meru referral hospital. Her parents, who come from a low-income, coufamilyld not pay the doctor's fees.

Due to the seriousness of her condition, HopeCore paid the doctor's consultation fees. She was diagnosed with acutely infected retinitis. She had stayed for a while without getting the necessary care, so the illness had advanced and started to infect the eye socket. Future eye issues and vision loss were prevented because of our intervention. Two months later, the girl has improved and is no longer in danger after receiving proper care and medication. She can now hear better and recovering well. Her parents expressed their appreciation for HopeCore's help.