For some time, Bvumbwe Research Health Centre in Thyolo has had so many challenges related to services delivery.
Despite sounding an alarm for help, not much was done to curb the challenges, among which were absence of a proper ablution at the facility, a broken fence, shortage of staff as well as lack of privacy for Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) clients.
“when we came at this facility to access ART services, were mixed with clients coming for general services, as such, as sensitive as our services are, there was not privacy, so in a way this made us boycott the services at the facility,” says 48 year old female ART client at the facility.
Today,
thanks to MANASO-empowered community Linkage Group (CLG), an advocacy community
force that has been drumming support for improved service delivery at the
facility.
Martha
Phiri, Maternity in Charge for the facility says, because of the advocacy efforts
by the group, the facility now has three new toilets and a six-room bathroom
for the maternity wing.
“MANASO
through its Community-Led Monitoring project is really doing wonders at this
facility. Initially we had made several calls for help, but we did not get help
with proportionate magnitude given our challenges. Today, the CLG has lobbied
for construction of three toilets, one for male clients, the other for female
clients and another for staff and also the bathrooms for our clients waiting
for delivery,” she says.
22
year old Brenda Thomas is due for her first baby at the facility. She is
excited to see decent toilets and bathrooms as she waits for her delivery time.
“I
am so happy to see our health facility have these beautiful structures. I have
heard so many stories of unhygienic standards here due to absence of proper
ablution, so this is really good news to us mothers,” explains Thomas.
Health
Advisory Committee (HAC) chair for Bvumbwe Research Health Centre, Davie Suwani
expresses profound gratitude to MANASO for capacitating his committee in
improving quality of healthcare services in his community.
“The
enlightenment that MANASO gave us through The Community-Led Monitoring project
is bearing massive results. Our Health Centre had so many challenges but we
have since been able to rectify them because of the capacity building that we
acquired from MANASO. We will continue lobbying for more positive change to ensure
that we have quality health service delivery,” he says.