Islamabad - As many as 600 volunteers were imparted training to reach out to women of childbearing age, who otherwise have no access to healthcare centres, and for improving access to healthcare for mothers and children.
In collaboration with a multinational company, the BRAC Pakistan has provided training to more than 600 volunteer women belonging to Pakpattan, Sahiwal and Sukkur districts. The volunteer women from marginalized communities attended awareness workshops on mother and child healthcare and other communicable diseases.
Due to a weak and difficult to access health system, women continue to die as a result of preventable complications that arise before, during and after childbirth. Pakistan is not on-track to achieve its MDGs and it is burdened with a high maternal mortality ratio of 276/100,000 live births, and high infant (74/1000) and under five (89/1000) mortality rates. Only 52 percent of births are attended by skilled health attendants, there is huge disparity among rural and urban areas owing to number of reasons. Some of these factors are: access to and availability and quality of health services, social factors such as low literacy rates, lack of access to information, poor knowledge about obstetric complications and delay in starting first antenatal care visit. Overall, only 68% of women receive at least one antenatal check-up. The total fertility rate is 3.8 and the contraceptive prevalence rate nationally is low at only 35.4%.
BRAC Pakistan has been conducting training programmes with the help of Community Health Promoters (CHPs) simultaneously in different villages of Sahiwal, Pakpattan and Sukkur districts. The training focuses on the importance of antenatal and postnatal care, identification of danger signs during pregnancy and recommended actions, understanding the benefits and components of birth preparedness and complication readiness. The focus of the specialized workshop (10-day event) also provides skilled knowledge and awareness about the issues pertaining to essential health and nutrition care, personal hygiene, family planning, mother and child health, clean water, immunization of infants, control of TB, malaria and hepatitis.
The volunteers will deliver crucial and culturally sensitive health messages, empowering individuals, households and communities to make informed decisions and increasing local access to life-saving preventive and curative measures.
After attending this training, the volunteers will go door to door (8-10 houses daily) to improve health status of women and adolescents and children under-five. They would specifically reach out to women of childbearing age who otherwise have no access to healthcare centres and to those women who could not leave their houses for cultural reasons.
The volunteer’s connections to the community and understanding of the context ideally places them as key resources in developing locally appropriate responses to health issues, encouraging community engagement and promoting sustainability towards reaching better health provision. They will keep a record of children under-five about their immunization status and vitamin A intake in a family card. They will provide antenatal and postnatal care, promote breast feeding, encourage family planning, advise to use a trained birth attendant in case of normal delivery, and refer mothers to hospital if complications arise.