Improving Access to Healthcare in Rural Zambia

One of the ways we are helping increase access to healthcare is by making sure the Community Health Workers we train have got the equipment they need to do their vital work. Thanks to our donors we’ve been able to provide the healthcare volunteers with backpacks filled with simple equipment like thermometers, stopwatches, water bottles, bandages and basic medications.

To enable them to travel further to reach more patients they are being provided with ‘Buffalo Bicycles’ – robust and easily maintained bikes designed for rough rural terrain. These bicycles will significantly increase the capacity of the health workers to make home visits to patients and expectant mothers. They’ll also be able to reach the nearest Rural Health Centres to meet with the staff there and collect the supplies they’ll need for their frontline health care work.

The Community Health Workers are delighted to have received all this equipment and are already reporting that they are getting to see more people more quickly.

Our team had been busy helping distribute birthing kits – packs of sterile sheets, gloves and essential items to help mothers give birth in a clean, safe environment.

Recently, at one of the Rural Health Centres with whom our team works, an expectant mother attended an antenatal appointment and received a birthing kit. When the mother came to giving birth the river water had risen so high she was unable to cross to get to the Rural Health Centre. Fortunately, she had been shown what to do with the birthing kit so was able to give birth comfortably at home.

A few days later the water went down and the lady was able to cross the river with the newborn baby. The Rural Health Centre checked the baby and mother and both were doing very well and were healthy with no signs of infection. Being able to create a sterile environment was key to this mother being able to deliver with few complications.

Birthing kits are all distributed by On Call Africa’s team through the Rural Health Centres and their staff. Nurses and community health workers give pregnant mothers a birthing kit at their antenatal clinic appointment. The expectant mothers will take the kits home and keep them until it is time to give birth. The mothers return to the Rural Health Centre when it is time to give birth and must bring the birthing kits with them. These kits are then used throughout the delivery.

Pregnant women are meant to report to a health centre of hospital for their labour. However, when giving out birthing kits the nurses explain how to use them in case the mothers find themselves in a situation where they have to give birth at home with no health care and the only thing that is sterile is the birthing kit.

The nurses at the Rural Health Centre have all reported that they feel the birthing kits are encouraging women to attend their antenatal clinic appointments so that they can receive a birthing kit. Attendance at antenatal appointments has always been low which is unsafe for the baby and the mother. With the added incentive of receiving a birthing kit and then being able to go on and deliver in a health centre where they will not have to pay anything more women are seeking medical help during their pregnancy.