ELGEYO-MARAKWET COUNTY

From 2012-2016, HealthRight led the PMNH+ project. This four-year USAID cooperative agreement was implemented in Elgeyo Marakwet County in Kenya’s North Rift Valley in partnership with Project C.U.R.E. and Sobon, a local social behavioral change and communication NGO and 4 other local NGOs. This project allowed for the opportunity to conduct a research study to evaluate the effectiveness of task-sharing using community health workers to provide maternal and neonatal care services.

Working with County and Sub-County Health Management teams, nine maternal & child health facilities, and 20 communities across East and West Marakwet, we strengthened the health system capacity in order to provide facility and community-based integrated maternal, neonatal, and child health and family planning services to nearly 46,000 people.

Some of our key achievements include:

• Established and trained quality improvement teams in 9 facilities to strengthen supervision, clinical quality, and Health Management Information Systems.
• Drove the development of a county Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) policy to enable safe reporting of and responding to disrespect and abuse in maternity wards.
• Trained and supported over 1,000 CHWs to offer an expanded package of maternal, neonatal, and child health and family planning services in households and trained almost 200 healthcare workers.
• Provided clinical mentoring to build capacity in such areas as managing obstetrical complications, neonatal resuscitation, cervical cancer screening, and Kangaroo Mother Care.
• Led a successful task sharing intervention in four sites to demonstrate the ability of trained CHWs to provide site-based services, working alongside clinical staff to reduce workloads and waiting times.
• Introduced and institutionalized 20 mobile outreach clinics to remote communities each month, reaching over 14,000 people annually with integrated MNCH/FP and HIV/RH services.
• Built the capacity of five community-based organizations to promote early care seeking and PMTC.
• Organized almost 400 community events, providing maternal, neonatal, and child health and family planning information to nearly 38,000 people.

This project reached 53,000 people.