Engendering Quality

In high-quality reproductive health services, providers listen to and counsel their clients, ensuring that they are able to make informed and voluntary decisions about their care.

Providers are responsive to their clients’ needs and maintain their privacy. They adhere to accepted, evidence-based clinical standards for the care they provide and practice proper infection prevention.

Like all clients, women living with fistula have a right to be treated with respect, dignity, and consideration. As part of its support to strengthen facilities’ capacity to serve women with fistula, Fistula Care adopted a quality improvement strategy based on the key elements of service that are fundamental to providing quality care:

Assuring quality and safety of clinical techniques and procedures according to guidelines, protocols, and standards that are routinely updated according to the available evidence
Ensuring informed and voluntary decision making for women with fistula and equipping providers with the knowledge, tools, and skills to facilitate counseling
Strengthening mechanisms for ongoing quality improvement and management at the facility level, through medical monitoring and supervision and through the use of tools to engage staff and clients in identifying and collaborating on opportunities to improve services

These elements are critical for facility-based fistula treatment services. They also serve as the foundation for all quality maternal health services—which means that these resources can help providers prevent fistula, other morbidities, and maternal deaths when they are applied to emergency obstetric care and family planning services. Communities have an important role to play in taking ownership of their health and engaging with health facilities to encourage high-quality service delivery.

This resource was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the cooperative agreement GHS-A-00-07-00021-00. The information provided on this resource is not official U.S. Government information and does not represent the views or positions of the USAID or the U.S. Government.