ONE strategy within the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children’s strategic plan towards reducing maternal mortality in the country, is to have partnerships.
There’s no way the Government can finance health issues alone, according to the Acting Assistant Director Reproductive and Child Health Section, Dr Koheleth Winani. It is through collaborating with their partners that the Section can deliver “quality health care” he maintains.
The fact remains that when challenges come, as they often do, they are then able to deal with them immediately. This assurance is assured once all the parties concerned are transparent.
Although a lot more is needed, Dr Winani doesn’t blame the corporate sector, bearing in mind they have other social responsibilities apart from health. Amongst these are education, water, roads and health.
Therefore they have to spread whatever funds they have between the various areas. At the end of the day, he maintains, “all have to be at a satisfactory level before overall benefit” can be gained.
“How can you access the health facilities, we need to have good roads. You need to have water in the health facilities. Those are the things that form part of local corporate social responsibilities,” he said.
Dr Winani had spoken to ‘Woman Magazine’ minutes after attending the launch of Thamini Uhai, last Friday here in Dar es Salaam. This local organisation aims to make sure a sustainable maternal and neonatal care system is available in all vulnerable communities within the country. The idea is that by so doing they will in effect eliminate maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.
In fact, prior to this launch the responsibility that Thamini Uhai has now taken-on, were being conducted by the New York-USA-Based World Lung Foundation Tanzania programme. Now the organisers saw it fitting to undergo the strategically important process of registering, as a Tanzania organisation, right here.
At the launch Thamini Uhai’s Executive Director Dr Nguke Mwakatundu had made it clear the fact that the Programme has now become a local organisation, is vital to their on-going mission and sustainability.
He said the new set-up enables them to have full ownership of the Programme, its work and objectives. “Amongst other benefits, this offers us the opportunity to choose a distinct brand for the new organisation.
One that is more closely reflective of our core mission, of improving maternal and new-born health, in line with the local Government’s targets on maternal and new-born health.
That brand is Thamini Uhai,” Dr Mwakatundu explained. He also said that under the former name of World Lung Foundation Tanzania they had been collaborating with the local Government since 2008. This is primarily in three regions, Kigoma, Morogoro and Coast.
There they constructed health centres, which they equipped, together with training staff, to the point whereby safe delivery operations are being conducted. Concerning this new launch, Dr Winani had shown ‘Woman Magazine’ earlier it is very optimistic, especially now that the Government is supervising such organisations using the “Paris Aid Principles”.
This means, he explained that whatever is being done in the country by such bodies, is owned by the Government. Therefore, the organisation has to align with their plans and new things have to harmonise with what they’re doing.
That way both parties have mutual accountability. “And finally, we want results, we don’t want numbers. I’ve trained one hundred people, no, no, no! You’ve trained so many people but has it improved the quality of care?
The process indicator needs to be improved. These are the people we want,” Dr Winani suggested, when providing an example of how this actually works on the ground.
Also present for the launch was a Programme Manager, on Service Delivery at the Dar es Salaam-based Mkapa Foundation, Dr Adeline Nyamwihura. There, her duties are to oversee service delivery programmes under which they have a project that aims at improving reproductive and maternal health in the country.
She told ‘Woman Magazine’ that she was pleased to hear the government’s stand towards improving maternal health in the country, in particular reducing maternal death. In fact, she liked their stand concerning sustainability and the importance of planning and implementing together.
This way, by the end of the Project the Government can continue with the initiative that the stakeholders, such as Thamini Uhai, had started, in that particular area. Having the launch, which took time to have a five-person live debate, followed by questions and answers session, immediately after the actual unveiling of their new organisation’s name and symbol, Dr Nyamwihura says was very useful.
One reason for this is it helped provide continuity, given an increasing number of local stakeholders, who are looking at problems here, then coming-up with solutions. The fact that Thamini Uhai shared their initiatives with them, means other stakeholders can avoid duplicating efforts.
Instead they should insure coverage is wide so that they reach many local women in need. , hence save more lives.source- www.dailynews.co.tz
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