Mobile Maternal Health Clinic for Women
To deal with the problem of lack of accessibility of maternal healthcare to Africans, we came out with a proposal, Mobile Maternal Health Clinic for Women, whereby maternal healthcare services can be conveniently available to Africans. The mobile clinic is in fact a bus that is well-facilitated with the basic maternal healthcare services, operated by well-trained medical professionals. The Mobile Clinic will drop by village by village at stipulated timings. Villagers are notified of the timings when the Mobile Clinic would arrive, so that they can do their check-ups conveniently. At the same time, pamphlets on proper maternal healthcare will be given out to villagers to serve as a means of increasing awareness of proper hygiene and practices. A fund will also be set aside to help improve the facilities in the Mobile Clinic and also to set up for Mobile Clinics so that this service can be more regular and effective.
Sobre Você
Seção 1: Sobre Você
Nome
NJC
Sobrenome
InE
Website
Organization
National Junior College
Country
Are you an individual between the ages of 18 and 35 who would like to apply for a nine month Young Champions Program mentored by an Ashoka Fellow?
Não
Seção 2: Sobre a Sua Organização
Nome da Organização
National Junior College
Página da organização na internet
Telefone da organização
Endereço da organização
País da organização
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Sua ideia
Dê um nome ao seu projeto
Mobile Maternal Health Clinic for Women
Country your work focuses on
África do Sul
Describe Your Idea
To deal with the problem of lack of accessibility of maternal healthcare to Africans, we came out with a proposal, Mobile Maternal Health Clinic for Women, whereby maternal healthcare services can be conveniently available to Africans. The mobile clinic is in fact a bus that is well-facilitated with the basic maternal healthcare services, operated by well-trained medical professionals. The Mobile Clinic will drop by village by village at stipulated timings. Villagers are notified of the timings when the Mobile Clinic would arrive, so that they can do their check-ups conveniently. At the same time, pamphlets on proper maternal healthcare will be given out to villagers to serve as a means of increasing awareness of proper hygiene and practices. A fund will also be set aside to help improve the facilities in the Mobile Clinic and also to set up for Mobile Clinics so that this service can be more regular and effective.
Website URL
INOVAÇÃO
What makes your idea unique?
One of the reasons for poor maternal health in Africa was the inaccessibility of healthcare services to the africans due to poor transports system. Other than targeting the problem by improving the transport system in Africa, we will tackle the issue directly by bringing maternal healthcare services directly to them by introducing a Mobile Clinic. This is why our idea is unique as it allows maternal healthcare services to be available to Africans right at their doorsteps.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impacto
Temas relacionados à inscrição
What impact have you had?
NA
Problem
Many poor mothers in Africa cannot afford to go to hospital for healthcare service and on top of that, the hospitals are not always located near the residential area, thus adding to limited accessibility of people living there to healthcare services. Also, the patients lack knowledge of how to take care of their own health during child-bearing and after, resulting in higher rate of infant mortality. Besides, the nurses and doctors working in this rural area often are often less professional and inexperienced as compared to those in urban area so sometimes they couldn’t handle complicated situation, leading to regrettable consequences.
Actions
Providing mobile-clinics bus going around rural villages to provide maternal healthcare services to the villagers and having sharing session between doctors with the villagers to actively educate them about lifestyle that will ensure good maternal health, the services include:
1. Prenatal care
- Screening service for pregnant women to identify and prevent diseases in the child as well as in future pregnancy
- Consultation on nutrient and daily habits during pregnancy
2. Postnatal care
- Mother’s recovery
- Child’s care in early birth
- Breastfeeding
- Consultation on nutrient and daily habits for mothers and new-born children
3. Consultation on family planning
- Planning the timing for pregnancy so that the family and mother are not overloaded with work and talking care of them and all the children are well-taken care of
- Having not so many children to ensure them to have better education and opportunities and according to financial status
- Stop having children after a certain age to ensure good health of both the mother and the child
Having some sort of tele-mobile tool in the bus so that the doctors in this mobile clinics can find help from doctors from other buses or hospitals
Results
Poor women and children have better access to healthcare as the mobile clinic helps to physically shorten the distance between their places and hospitals and provides them with more affordable services. The mothers and families also have better knowledge of how to manage their daily habits to achieve better maternal health through conversation and counselling with the doctors and nurses. Lastly, the healthcare services' quality have improved thanks to better communication between doctors from different area and the patients put more trust in the services.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
The project requires a system of dedicated doctors and nurses who are not only trained in profession but also in interacting with patients and take initiative to understand them. Also, we need help from professtional doctors who would agree connection with the doctors in mobile clinics and help them. Cooperation with local hospitals and Ministry of Health would also help keep these services well-controlled and effective.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Financial problem is the biggest problem that would make this project fails since there are many equipment to be prepared in a mobile clinics and the poor residential area requires a large number of mobile clinic to cover it effectively.
The clinic would not be able to replace hospital services since the equipments available are limited so in case of serious and emergency situation, the patients are still recommended to go to the hospital.
How many people will your project serve annually?
1.001‐10.000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$50 - 100
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sim
SUSTENTABILIDADE
Em que estágio está seu projeto?
Fase de concepção
Sua organização é
OSCIP/ONG
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
If yes, provide organization name.
How long has this organization been operating?
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Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with government?
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
We aim to become connected with a local group of doctors and healthcare professionals as we are prevented from directly participating in the innovation by geographical and skills constraints. Thus, the expertise and the willingness to help of these healthcare professionals will be the key to the success of our innovation. Also, through these professionals, publicity and education will be carried out to the locals in the villages visited. If these professionals are driven by the desire to make a difference to their community, our project will be a success as the post- and pre-natal women in the community will be monitored and educated. Local professionals would be preferred to help from abroad because Africa as a community should gradually start to be self-sufficient and able to sustain healthcare within the community without external help.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
Firstly, contact must be established between us and the local professional doctors that are interested to join in the venture. This is important since we are limited by the skills and geographically. Only with this contact will we be able to carry out our innovation.
Secondly, publicity must be done to attract more professionals to this cause, in order to expand the ability and the number of villages affected by the innovation. This can be done by proving that the initiative does indeed make a difference to the people's lives, especially in the area of pre- and post-natal care. This will be done through pictures and interviews conducted with the beneficiaries. Also, through this, we hope to gain the support of the Government.
Lastly, we aim for a more widespread impact since Africa is not the only place that has maternal health problems. Countries like Zimbabwe are also in need of better maternal health, according to the 2009 maternal mortality rankings (of which Central African Republic ranked number 1). With sufficient funding and publicity, we aim to expand our initiative out of Africa to form a network that reaches out to the most number of people possible.
A História
What was the defining moment that you led to this innovation?
After some discussion, and some research about the maternal health problems encountered in the Central African Republic, the team decided that accessibility and experience of doctors were the two most pressing issues that should be addressed if we want to improve maternal health there. Firstly, we found that many remote areas get little or no healthcare services due to the inaccessibility of healthcare, and also the fact that many healthcare professionals were not experienced enough to meet the needs of the people in terms of maternal health. As a result, the maternal mortality rate in the area is extremely high (the highest in the world).
This innovation was inspired by a local initiative by the Singapore Government called the School Dental Bus. To address the problem of poor dental health in school children as a result of poor knowledge of parents and inaccessibility, "Dental Buses" were deployed to go around schools, which acted as mobile dental clinics. Once at a school, all children were rostered to have their routine dental check-ups. Since dental check-ups were not required too often, the dental bus came to each school at least once every 6 months. It was an effective initiative and one that all in the team grew up with and knew very well. Using this tested method as an inspiration, the team decided that this was also a very good way to bring maternal healthcare services to the population to counter the problem of inaccessibility. Also, through this initiative, the healthcare professionals involved would be able to gain more exposure and experience to add to the quality of healthcare services available in the community.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Approximately 300 words left (2400 characters).
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
College or university
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
National Junior College
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Comentários
Check out the Clinical Patient Administration Kit (CliniPAK)being used by the organizations Vecna Cares and Click Health. The CliniPAK allows a nurse or a midwife to do a high quality assessment of a patient in a rural setting and to create a linked patient record (and fingerprint ID). It might be useful in collaboration with your mobile clinic idea.
More information on this and other useful ideas can be found at maternova.net. Maternova also has an entry in this competition.
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