By Jennifer Snell | Africa Program Director
Report for September 2013
Overview:
Women in Pokot County in Kenya face enormous challenges during pregnancy and delivery. Great distances between health facilities, high costs and poor quality of care contribute to far too many deaths for women and their newborns. HealthRight is working to improve these statistics and to keep mothers and babies alive. Since 2010, HealthRight has been supporting three maternity waiting homes (MWH) which eliminate the need to walk an average of three hours during labor. The homes lead to closer monitoring of labor by trained health staff and better quality of care during delivery. Babies whose mothers stay in a MWH are healthier at birth than those whose mothers do not use the home.
Progress:
This project paid for maintenance and upkeep of the 3 maternity waiting homes and promotional events in the communities. GlobalGiving donations also provided stipends to community health workers to provide women in the homes with information about how to keep themselves and their babies safe during and after delivery. Because of this support, the maternity waiting homes are serving more women than ever before. In August, the newest MWH constructed in Kapenguria District Hospital was at 130% occupancy – up nearly 200% in one month. This was due to the ongoing efforts to raise awareness about the benefits of the home. In addition, in the past quarter, hundreds of women have received health education during their stay. Because of this, 100% of the women using the homes report that they would recommend them to a friend. This high user satisfaction will further endorse the use of homes and encourage more women to choose to deliver safely in a health facility.
For more details about our progress, check out the attached table with useful project data.
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