S9E2 - Improving the Quality of ANC and PNC in Kenya

Media 23 Sep 2022
91

To listen to the audio along with the transcript click here

In this week's episode co-host Lucy Nyaga, together with guests Amina Baraka, a Nursing Officer in charge of Vihiga County Referral hospital and Fatuma Iman, a Reproductive Health Coordinator in Garissa County discuss their involvement in the ‘Quality Improvement (QI) of integrated HIV, TB, and malaria services in Antenatal and Postnatal care (ANC and PNC)’ programme funded by the Global Fund with funding from Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The project is supporting 61 health facilities across 3 counties to provide capacity building, mentorship and to generate evidence to inform decision-making and policymaking to support improvements of maternal, new-born and child quality of care. 

Lucy Nyaga

Country Director, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Kenya 

My name is Lucy Nyaga. I am the Country Director, Liverpool School of Tropical medicine, in Kenya. I have a background in Medical Anthropology and Public Health with extensive experience in promoting implementation of research results into policy and practice with a special focus on MNH.  With twenty years’ experience working in health programming, my experience and expertise in MNH has involved managing and implementing programmes that incorporate implementation research to inform effective programming and policy influence. Working with a range of organizations ranging from governments, academic and research institutions, UN agencies, and national & INGO, I have led and contributed to key MNH research that has led to policy influence in Eastern Africa. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-nkirote-2062832b/ 

TWITTER HANDLES 

@Lucynnyaga 

@MOH_Kenya 

Amina Anyango Baraka

Nursing manager Vihiga County Referral Hospital

In Vihiga County Referral Hospital we offer a range of reproductive health services to the women and their families. These include antenatal care during pregnancy, intrapartum care, and postnatal care to include contraceptive use. 

Despite all these interventions, the data available still show that a large number of maternal and neonatal deaths occur during birth and 48 hours after. 

The major causes of the mortalities being hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and haemorrhage. The audits have showed that in many circumstances either there is delay in seeking the needed care or delay in the health facility to initiate the appropriate interventions. 

In this regard the provider ability to do correct diagnosis and intervene appropriately is key. Thus we regularly do training needs assessment to ascertain the provider gaps. In the community we hold dialogue days and verbal autopsies to determine the possible causes of ill health and mortalities and factors influence the uptake health services.

Fatuma Iman Maalim 

Mrs. Fatuma Iman Maalim holds a Master of Science Degree in Community Health & Development and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. She has 35 solid years of experience working with the Ministry of Health - Kenya, 18 Years’ experience working in Maternal Newborn Health programme and 1 year in ANC/PNC programme. 

Mrs. Fatuma, is the County Reproductive Health Coordinator Garissa. She overseas and coordinates Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health and Gender Mainstreaming services in the entire county. She is a Master trainer, a Manager, a Mentor & a Decision maker. She is also the focal person of the World Bank’s Transforming Health Systems for Universal Care (THS-UC) Project. Before devolution Fatuma was the Provincial Reproductive Health Coordinator, covering the entire Garissa, Wajir and Mandera districts. Garissa County is among the most underdeveloped counties in Kenya, with the highest Maternal and Neonatal mortality burden of 646 out of 100,000 and 24 out of 1000 respectively (KDHS 2019). 

Personal Twitter handle - @fatmaimaan1 

Organisation Twitter handle - @garissahealth 

Articles – Core authored a cross – sectional study on “The determinants of staff retention after Emergency Obstetrics and Newborn Care training in Kenya.” BMC Health Services Research (2022) 22:872. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-022-08253-2

Research Paper:- Knowledge, perceptions and practices on utilization of maternal waiting-homes among women of reproductive-age in Garissa township constituency Garissa County  (2018)

 

This is a podcast in the series: Connecting Citizens to Science,(opens in a new tab) which focuses on health research based on equitable partnerships between researchers and communities.