Improving healthcare delivery in the Northern Region using maternal and child care book, the role of UNICEF

United Nation's Children Fund (UNICEF), a humanitarian aid organisation continue to play critical role in Ghana by helping to save more lives among mothers and children, empower more women, enhance healthcare delivering as well bring about development in its operational areas.

The organisation’s commitment in providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide continue to receive support through the Japan government and other donors to implement projects aimed at ensuring the welfare of children, mothers and the society.

One of the critical roles played by UNICEF in the Northern region is the introduction of the Maternal and Child Health Record Book (MCHRB) among pregnant mothers and the health practitioners. The use of the record book is to aid in reducing health and nutrition inequalities in children.

The book serves as the comprehensive early childhood development and nurturing care packages aimed at helping caregivers learn about the useful practices they need to promote health and development of their children. The MCH RB contains information on how to mothers and their children should take care of themselves.

According to UNICEF, the essence of the initiative was to ensure that mothers and children have good health, adequate nutrition, safety and security as well as provide responsive care giving and opportunities.

With the support from the government of Japan, UNICEF supported the Ghana Health Services in 2020 to scale up the effective use of the book nationwide.

The project was able to train about 3,200 health professionals and also reached out to 740,000 mothers and newly-born babies across nine regions in Ghana where access to quality healthcare was very low affecting mortalities and nutrition indicators such as immunization, iron and folic acid supplementation for women, exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding.

The Government was said to have previously supported the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)to implement the MCHRB project in scaling up of the book.

Through the project, a total of 985,512 mothers and babies were reached out to by 4,074 professionals in 79 districts to take these mothers through the MCHRB.

800 infanto-meters, a device used to measure a baby’s length and height and 160,000 MCHRB were procured and strategically distributed to targeted health facilities which helped in educating pregnant and nursing mothers to adhere to the quality healthcare of their children and their welfare.

8,450 of the new nurturing care framework resource pack and 8,450, supplement flip charts were procured and distributed to the regions, districts and the health facilities for the health practitioners to use them providing nurturing care and counseling to caregivers and their children.

It said that an initial baseline assessment was conducted to assess the status of health and nutrition service utilization in the intervention districts using the district health information management system's 2 monthly data from all public health facilities across the 79 intervention districts in eight regions of which a total of 15 health and nutrition service indicators from January 2017 to December 2020 were assessed in both intervention and control districts.

In an interview disclosed to the B&FT by officials of UNICEF indicates that interviews were conducted of which 2,747 mothers and children under five years across the 79 districts participated in the exercise. The result showed an increased usage of the book which has helped to curb the mortality rates and it has helped caregivers to provide the needed support to their children that has gone a long way to compliment government commitment of improving quality healthcare.

It was said that the project helped to increase nutrition counseling from 86.8 percent to and 33.8 percent in December 2021 to 89.5 percent and 65.5 percent in March 2022 respectively. The project also in collaboration with the Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP) helped to train 144 representing 49 females and 95 males’ community health workers on essential service delivery. 101 health professionals were also trained on data management and reporting tools for reproductive, maternal, new-born and child-
health services.

In addition to Kaizen project, Japanese model for improving efficiencies in work environment were facilitated in the targeted communities. The social and Behaviour change team at UNICEF also developed the social change communication approaches used to educate the pregnant mothers on how to eat well during
pregnancy, danger signs in pregnancy and importance of growth monitoring and promotion.

More so, key messages on new-born and maternal health were developed and uploaded on the talking book devices in four districts of the Upper West Region to promote the uptake of social change behaviour in health across 130 CHPS compounds of which about 45,000 care givers benefitted.

Aside the hand books, UNICEF supported in the provision of newborn care centers in its operational areas that has helped to improve the lives and wellbeing of children in the Savannah and North-East regions thereby curbing high maternal and newborn deaths. Health workers were also provided with capacity training on how to use the equipment as well as best healthcare delivery. The centers were supported through the china AID of one million dollars which has gone a long way to strengthen the delivery of healthcare.

Chief Field Office at UNICEF Bhanu Pathak said UNICEF is committed to promoting standard of living of people within its operational areas to bring about human development.

"In healthcare delivering, we have been supporting hospitals with the needed health equipment to provide quality healthcare service while pregnant and nursing mothers also provided with the needed education on how to take god care of themselves and the children", he said.

He noted that the organisation through support provided boreholes in some schools with 25 institutional toilet facilities to enhance quality life and sanitation in the various schools and communities.

On open defecation, he said the agency launched a campaign to create awareness on the desist for residents to desist from open defecation which has effect on human life.

Health and Nutritionist Specialist at UNICEF, Mr. Peter Kwarteng commended government of Japan for the support to help in ensuring the health and well-being of mothers and children who play critical role in the society.

He noted that rigorous mechanisms were put in place to ensure value for achievement of the project goal to enhance quality healthcare and community development adding that with the introduction of the book; over 160,000 mothers can now track the growth and development of their children.

He said: "The book has helped to integrate monitoring of nutrition, growth and immunization to ensure maternal and child health in the country".

The Head of Economic and grant department at the Japan Embassy in Ghana, Sonoda Shohei commended UNICEF for facilitating the implementation of the project to ensure quality healthcare delivery services and help pregnant and nursing mother to acquire knowledge of maternal issues through the book.

He reiterated the commitment of the Japan government support to UNICEF to achieve its set goals of initiating humanitarian activities to improve the well being of mothers, children and other residents in the operational areas to ensure development and economic growth.