Fistula Care Plus is proud to announce that one of our projects and one of EngenderHealth’s projects were highlighted in USAID’s West Africa Regional Office Newsletter, ParlerHealth. The newsletter can be read in its entirety here.
This post from our former Project Director, Karen Beattie, highlights our fistula care surgery campaign in Togo in last December, and was included in the April 2015 newsletter.
Additionally, a post from our EngenderHealth colleague Rouguiatou Diallo was featured in the newsletter. It discusses AgirPF’s work with Family Planning Centers of Excellence in West Africa. Family planning is a core component of fistula prevention, and AgirPF and Fistula Care Plus aim to collaborate on projects in West Africa when possible. The post, which highlights AgirPF’s work with creating Family Planning Centers of Excellence in West Africa, can be read below.
Finally, the ParlerHealth newsletter announces the West African Health Organization’s first ECOWAS Good Practices Forum in Health from July 29-31, 2015, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The theme of the forum will be Ending Preventable Mother and Child Deaths in West Africa. Fistula Care Plus is excited for this new forum and will have representatives there to showcase our work in the region.
USAID/WA Supports Family Planning Centers of Excellence
Rouguiatou Diallo, Chief of Party, AgirPF Project, USAID/WA
USAID/WA supports Ministries of Health (MOHs) and other local partners to increase access to, quality of, and demand for family planning (FP) in five countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Niger and Togo.
One technical approach of the USAID/WA-funded AgirPF project to improve the quality of FP services is to develop a Family Planning Center of Excellence (CoE) in each focus country. The role of the CoE is to: (i) provide a model of the highest standard of FP service delivery, and (ii) train health care providers to deliver high quality family planning services. At these centers, managers, providers, community leaders, policymakers and clients are able to observe high-quality services, effective community engagement, respect for clients’ rights, and the impact of strengthening the enabling environment for family planning. Three health facilities were selected and are receiving support to meet their goal of becoming a CoE:
- Togo: Main clinic of Association Togolaise pour le Bien-Etre Familial in Lomé
- Niger: Centre National de Sante de la Reproduction (CNSR) in Niamey
- Burkina: Bogodogo Health District Hospital in Ouagadougou
So far, AgirPF has trained trainers in these centers using a package that consists of components for refresher training for trainers, facilitative supervisions, adult training and learning exercises, and FP technology. These trainers will act as a pool of expert FP Trainers for West Africa.
As a result of participatory organizational capacity assessments, AgirPF and the CoEs developed action plans for capacity strengthening to improve the quality FP service delivery and to act as a regional CoE. ATBEF is close to becoming the first fully functional FP Center of Excellence. In addition to training trainers, USAID/WA has procured training and service provision equipment to assist ATBEF to fulfill its role as a CoE.