Project News

2012-04-03~04-11

Mr.Kyo Hanada, who is a Senior Advisor (Health) in JICA Headquarter, Tokyo Japan, came to work with the project office as the consultant for 3 weeks from end of March 2012.

Mr.Hanada participated Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) visit to the pilot 4 provinces of Dien Bien, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and An Giang with the project office.

In 2011 financial year (FY), the selected 30% of the districts of each province, and 100% of the communes of the selected districts for implementation of the Maternal and Child Health handbook (MCH handbook). The training for health staffs at those areas have already done, has just started providing MCH handbook to the pregnant women and the mothers who have children under 1 year old at the end of March. Although the distribution of MCH handbook to the users was just started, the coverage of MCH handbook is already relatively high because of the effort by the 4 provincial Project Management Units (PMUs).

The M&E visit to Dien Bien

Dien Bien is a mountainous province having some remote areas with bad road condition. In general, the Commune Health Centre（CHC ）is the place to provide the MCH handbook to pregnant women and mothers. However, due to hard access to the villages, in fact the village health workers are playing active role in distribution of MCH handbook by visiting every home where they live to provide the MCH handbook and explain how to use. Dien Bien also has many ethnic minority groups, who cannot read or understand Vietnamese language; at that time the husband or family members also listen to the explanation to support his wife to use the MCH handbook.

We interviewed some mothers who have already received the MCH handbook. They described some favorite comments to the MCH handbook. For example "I have read twice whole MCH handbook since I received", "I keep this MCH handbook put in my bag on my bed carefully".

The class-room sessions consisted of lectures on M&E conceptual framework, and on skills for Supportive Supervision, going in line with respective group discussion sessions.

With staff on Nua Ngan CHC at Dien Bien District (Mr.Hanada: Right)

The M&E group interviewed a pregnant woman and a mother who has a baby at Ta Leng Village, Dien Bien Phu City

Debriefing on the M&E visit to the leaders of Dien Bien PMU

We happened to meet some women at medical facilities, a pregnant woman who had abdominal tender in An Giang, a pregnant woman who came to delivery in Dien Bien, a mother whose baby was not feeling well in An Giang, all these three women brought the MCH handbook.

At our visit this time, MCH handbook seems to be accepted by the pregnant women and mothers, and also we recognized that health workers and village health workers worked very well to provide the MCH handbook to the users.