Maternal and Child Health Clinics

2019 MCH REPORT INTRODUCTION

This report highlights the achievements of Village HopeCore’s MCH project for the period between January 1st 2019 and November 31st 2019. The MCH project’s main target is children under five years and their mothers. Services offered to under five children are nutritional assessments through monitoring of parameters such as weight for age, height for age, weight for height, head circumference and mid upper arm circumference (MUAC). Any deviation from normal receive the appropriate action including nutritional counselling, nutritional supplements and referral & follow-ups for severely malnourished. The children also receive free treatment services, supplementation with vitamin A and dewormers. Our services to the mothers include free health messages, free screening of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Expectant mothers receive free antenatal, postnatal and treatment services. In addition, we offer free Family planning services The clients are reached through our mobile MCH clinics in schools, churches and other public spaces such as chief’s camps. We also run our community clinic situated at our Chogoria offices. Our team of 206 community health volunteers do household visits to reach the mothers and children with appropriate tier 1 primary health care services

THE COMMUNITY CLINIC

We are glad to report that we have started to run a community laboratory linked to the clinic. The laboratory has been duly registered and licensed to operate. The laboratory is offering free services to pregnant mothers including free antenatal profiles and other diagnostic services. Children under five years also receive free laboratory tests. We have also contracted the services of a medical doctor who sees patients both in the clinic and in the field 6 days every month Since January, 1201 children have been treated in the clinic with the laboratory doing 47 ANC profiles and doing different tests to 86 children under five years. The clinic has also treated 5559 adult patients. MOBILE CLINICS We have conducted a total of 439 mobile MCH clinic reaching 12862 children under five and 4693 mothers and fathers with treatment services. During these clinics, we reached 7755 children with growth monitoring services with 36 of them being referred to a dietician due to severe malnutrition We also collaborated with the county government in using the beyond zero track, an initiative by Kenya’s first lady aimed at reaching pregnant mothers and children in hard to reach areas with health services with the main goal of zero maternal, infant and child deaths. We conducted 12 beyond zero clinics, serving 48 pregnant mothers and doing 33 ANC profiles

COMMUNITY HEALTH VOLUNTEERS

This year, our 206 CHVs made a total of 40365 home visits. During these visits, they did growth monitoring to 8613 children with 201 of them having MUAC red requiring referral, nutritional counselling and follow up. The CHVs also visited pregnant mothers 1785 times, counselling them on importance of 4 ANC visits, skilled delivery and helping the mothers form individualized birth plans. Newborn children are also visited by CHVs 24 hours, on day 3 and day 7 after delivery to identify any danger signs in the newborns, problems with breastfeeding and bonding. Since January, our CHVs have visited newborns 1217 times, educating mothers on exclusive breastfeeding, child spacing and importance of adhering to immunization schedule.

CHALLENGES

Our laboratory took a long time before being inspected, registered and licensed by Kenya Medical Laboratories Technicians and Technologists Board (KMLTTB) hence losing valuable time and opportunity We are still not able to offer all the major laboratory services to the community due to the lack of various automated machines e.g. BIO chemistry analyzer, Immunoassay analyzer, and hormones analyzer, etc. Change in regulation. A law has been passed requiring only laboratory personnel to do HIV testing and blood sugar tests. This has reduced the number being screened for diabetes and HIV since we only have one laboratory technician

WAY FORWARD

We are charging a subsidized cost to other adult clients for both clinical and lab services with the income being ploughed back into the operations of the two. This is aimed at ensuring sustainability of the project We aim to increase our fundraising efforts to be able to purchase other diagnostic machines such as Biochemistry analyzer to increase the range of tests being done and upgrade the lab from the current class. Increasing our range of services will enable us to be accredited by the national health insurer hence bigger client base and sustainability

CONCLUSION

We would like to appreciate the global giving platform for the chance to capacity build in the area of fundraising and the funds raised this far. The visibility offered by the platform has also gone a long way in marketing our project