Project News

Meetings were held at each district to share information on the achievements made by project activities as well as the plan of future activities among concerned people (on 19 July 2017 in Mafraq, 20 July in Dayr Allah, and 1 August in Irbid). Directors (or the Deputy Directors) of each Health Directorate, doctors, midwives, nurses, Maternal and Child Health Supervisors, and health promoters who work at target village health centers (VHC) participated in these meetings. Furthermore, the Director and the Head of the Monitoring Supervision Department, and the Maternal and Child Health Supervisor of the Woman and Child Health Directorate were also present at these meetings.

In these meetings, we shared the current status of the provision of family planning and maternal and child health services which were started in January this year, as well as information on the number of client visits, and the allocation of midwives. After the training sessions for the health care providers and the allocation of midwives to 9 focus VHCs, provision of family planning services began at all 14 focus VHCs while maternal and child health services were also started at 9 of the 14 focus VHCs. As a result, community people in these rural areas have been given greater access to services. Health promotion activities began in April this year and were held 43 times over the 3-month period through July (excluding the period of Ramadan), with a total of 1,166 participants. Topics of greatest interest to participants were family planning, mother and child nutrition, anemia, and the ill effects of smoking. As lecturers were mainly female health staff such as midwives and nurses, eighty-seven percent of the participants so far have been female and they enthusiastically asked questions about family planning and nutrition, among other things. Unfortunately, we are yet unable to provide maternal and child health services at 5 out of the 14 focus VHCs due to a lack of support from midwives. Top administrators at each Health Directorate showed a positive resolve to continue efforts to increase the number of midwives allocated to VHCs.

Of special note is that, in the 3 meetings held in Irbid Health Directorate, we received many reports from health staff and health promoters on their experiences and the outcomes of project activities within the Irbid Health Directorate. For example, a nurse from Abu Habeer VHC reported that she had been working closely with a midwife and they had been conducting home visits together within the community. Through home visits, not only can they respond to individual needs, but by making visits to many homes they can become more aware of the potential health problems in the area. Also, in addition to home visits, health promotion activities generate an opportunity to publicize the VHC's new services, and to reinforce trust between VHC and the community. As a result, there were reports from several health staff and health promoters, which described that more clients had visited VHCs than before.

Through these meetings, we were delighted to discover that the number of residents accessing necessary health services is increasing as a result of the synergistic effects between the improved VHC services and health promotion activities at the field level. The combination of these efforts will lead to improvement in community awareness and behaviors in relation to reproductive health and basic health. We expect that increasing opportunities to share such experiences and discuss the lessons learned from these experiences will contribute to raising their motivation and galvanizing their activities.

Meeting for Doctors, Midwives, Nurses
19 July 2017 in Mafraq

20 July in Dayr Allah

1 August in Irbid