Action For Health : Empowering Communities in Mali

In August 2013, Mali Health and its partner One Day’s Wages inaugurated a new maternity ward built on the campus of CSCOMSiSou, the clinic that Mali Health helped to build in 2010. This maternity ward provides a safe and private space for expecting women to receive professional peri-natal care from midwives and nurses. In the year since the ward’s opening, we have seen promising improvement in maternal health indicators.

The maternity ward significantly increased the number of beds and health professionals available to help women during delivery. It also provided a space separate from the rest of the clinic, away from patients with contagious illnesses, where women could give birth in privacy. Since the ward’s opening, the number of clinic-based births has risen slightly, and we expect to see that number continue to rise as the ward’s capacity continues to improve.

Critically, prenatal consultations (which are essential to a healthy pregnancy) have also risen since the maternity ward’s inauguration. The number of women who are attending their first, third, and fourth or more consultations, has increased significantly. The ward also offers crucial vaccinations for mothers and newborns, and the rate of vaccinations, too, is rising. The next challenge we aim to tackle is to increase the availability of particular vaccines and the variety and quality of equipment available to the ward’s staff. The most significant improvement is in the rate of family planning consultations – the availability of professional midwives has led many more women to visit the ward to speak with midwives about their options.

Community Health Workers in the Action for Health program meet with over 900 expecting mothers on a regular basis to monitor their health and development. Since the opening of the maternity ward, the health workers also encourage these mothers to seek consultations at the clinic, where they can receive counseling, as well as most of the necessary medications to ensure a healthy pregnancy.

The impact of the maternity ward is perhaps best represented by the story of Assa. One year ago, Assa fell ill and decided to go to CSCOMSiSou, As soon as the clinic's doctor informed her that she was pregnant, the midwives gave Assa helpful advice about her pregnancy and prescribed her the medications she would need at the clinic's newly constructed maternity ward. A Mali Health Community Health Worker ensured that Assa received pre-natal consultations and met with the clinic’s midwives, from whom she received constant support and valuable assistance. In June of 2014, she gave birth to a son, Yaya without any complications or difficulties. Yaya is now a healthy and happy three-month-old boy, and Assa still receives regular visits from Oumou. In her words, “I am so grateful for the support of the clinic’s midwives and my community health worker throughout and after my pregnancy.” She continues to go back to the maternity ward when her son falls ill and for his vaccinations.

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