Joint health system-community sessions to support women’s deliveries
This month, project coordinators Ruta Massunguine and ArgentinaMunguambe (responsible for education in the community and the health system, respectively) have been busy carrying out sessions in each district with both health care workers and community members, together. They are using a tool developed by the project to encourage thinking about a pregnant woman’s delivery process in a less episodic and isolated way. The pregnant woman’s journey from home to delivery site and her experience throughout pregnancy are discussed as a “care pathway”, so that both health system and community-based participants can jointly think about how to make improvements in supporting her, where they can, within their own capacities and resources.
The tool was first workshopped with Inhambane provincial health system managers last year, and they agreed it would be useful for health system and community education.
The integrated approach encouraged by this tool not only contributes to resolving problems, it also contributes to better understanding between health workers and community members. In the current sessions, some key points of intervention that health workers and community members have collaboratively identified include improved communication and information sharing within communities about the importance of pre-natal care and health facility deliveries, and more respectful treatment of pregnant women by the health workers themselves (part of the Mozambique MoH’s “Humanized Care” policy).
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