The deputy co-ordinator for maternal and child healthcare from the Kano Ministry of Health attended the installation. She said that this is a laudable and beautiful project. She plans give a report on it to the Kano State Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health.

More pictures of the installation were added to the Pisaca website ablums. click here.

The healthcare workers were very happy to have lights now to conduct deliveries and do their work more effectively at night, because the whole LGA  has had no NEPA/ grid supply for over a year and the generator that supplies light to the PHC is faulty.

Check out more pictures of the installation here

eHealth Nigeria was selected to present a poster on a project that we did in conjunction with the Population Council and the Population and Reproductive Health Initiative (based out of the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital).

The poster was entitled “The use of RapidSMS to facilitate community-based surveillance for maternal and newborn health in rural communities in Northern Nigeria”.

Abstract:
In rural communities of Northern Nigeria maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) is hindered due to the lack of timely and accurate health reports, a lack of coordination amongst public health stakeholders, and lack of urgent and follow-up care. The mobile Community Based Surveillance (mCBS) project introduced a means of capturing maternal newborn child health (MNCH) data in Northern Nigeria through the use of coded SMS messages that transmitted the observations of traditional birth attendants (TBAs), a community nurse midwife (CNMW), and skilled community health workers (CHW) to a centralized information system. Four TBAs received a week-long training on cell phone literacy and vital event reporting via SMS. They also received “refresher” trainings on how to recognize 10 different MNCH vital events which included eclampsia, post-partum hemorrhage, miscarriage, and others. For three months TBAs reported vital events via SMS as well as a low-literate manual-count method for comparison. The CNMW then forwarded weekly summaries of vital events via SMS. For urgent events, the CHWs were immediately alerted to respond at the community level, and sent an SMS detailing the outcome. Preliminary analysis of process and outcome data indicated that non-skilled, illiterate TBAs could be trained to effectively send SMS messages to report MNCH vital events. Accuracy and timeliness of rural public health reporting and response improved.  As the program is expanded, it is expected that the use of the SMS reports will continue to reduce the time it takes to receive urgent care, improve follow-ups on deliveries, and thus improve MNCH outcomes. The project demonstrates that non- and semi-skilled health workers can be incorporated into in a real-time, community-based, data collection scheme.  Furthermore, the project offers a pathway to engage TBAs as productive members of health reporting and referral systems in a severely resource deprived setting.

Poster:

As we began to build our data center in Nigeria, we looked for equipment that was durable, low-power, powerful, and would meet all of our needs. After working with ICC, we decided on using AMD equipment.

Read the whole case study here:

In order to fix an episiotomy or a perineal tear, good visualization and light is needed so that a health care professional can clearly see the tissue and muscle that needs to be sewn back together. If a episiotomy or tear is not repaired properly, it could lead to a woman’s inability to control her bladder or a fistula.

When a facility does not have adequate lighting to perform an episiotomy of perineal tear, this is what happens:

If subtitles do not immediately show up, hover your mouse over the arrow on the bottom right of the video and click on “CC” to turn it red.

Also in Northern Nigerian health facilities, it is common for a woman to not receive any form of pain killer when undergoing an suturing.

For the position of “Community Mobilization Program Officer”, we are looking for a skilled project manager with experience in health program management. Speaking Hausa is a requirement, experience in PMTCT is very helpful, Public Health experience is greatly desired, candidate will need to possess excellent written and oral communication skills, also familiarity with computers is necessary.

Salary range will be =N= 130,000 to =N= 190,000 monthly depending on experience.

Please contact info@ehealthnigeria.org with you inquiries.

A detailed job description is available here: Job Description: Community Mobilization Program Officer