Community Health Clinics Improve Access to Quality Healthcare in Mposa

Hadija Biliati used to fear the long, treacherous walk to the nearest health clinic especially when her child fell sick. Every fever, every cough meant a desperate 12-kilometer journey under the scorching sun, praying they would make it in time. But today, her story is different. Billiati’s child now receives life saving under-five child care just steps from her home and she is not the only one whose life has changed following the rolling out of Village Health Clinic courtesy of World Vision.

“We come here for regular check-ups, treatment for child illnesses and our children are receiving prompt medical attention unlike in the past when we used to walk about 12 Kilometres to access these services. It’s helping a lot in provision of accessible health care services, reducing the need for long distance travel to reach medical facilities,” says Biliati.

Through close collaboration with  the government of Malawi, World Vision Malawi introduced the Village health Clinics in traditional authority Mposa and trained about 10 health Surveillance Assistants to provide guidance on proper nutrition to enable mothers to make informed decisions about children's diet to improve children's wellbeing.

One of the beneficiaries of the capacity building programs is White Chikusilo, a Health Surveillance Assistant . Chikusilo says the initiative has helped to bring essential health services to rural communities. 

“We are now better equipped to provide critical health services including health education to communities and things are far much better as far as promotion of health behaviour is concerned among pregnant mothers and those who have under five children,”  says Chikusilo.

According to Chikusilo in the past he used to report numerous cases of stunting, pneumonia, Malaria but the training has helped to reduce the cases among children. For instance, Chikusilo’s catchment area used to detect over 60 cases of pneumonia and over  50 cases of diarrhea among under-five children every month but now through the Village Health Clinics, the catchment area has managed to reduce the number of cases being reported to a  maximum of 10 cases per month.

“We are feeling more confident in our ability to provide high quality health services to our communities,” says Chikusilo. 

Liny Mwanja, Project Officer for Maternal and Child Health at World Vision in Machinga describes the intervention as a success.  Mwanja says that the intention was to empower local strategic partners to work together in improving child-wellbeing and promote sustainability of the same even as the project concludes.

“We are excited with the positive impact of our project.  We have seen improved health outcomes and increased access to essential health services for rural communities around Mposa area and we believe this will be sustained through local structures in the impact area. “Says Mwanja.