MHEN progresses in eradicating pre-mature deaths through MCGs
In a quest to promote immunization and vaccine amongst Under Five children in the country, Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has empowered women across the country through Mother Care Groups (MCGs) to mobilize other women to take their children into necessary immunizations and vaccination processes to eradicate pre-mature deaths.
Gift Mwale, Regional Chair for the Centre at MHEN, retaliate their commitment in advocacy skills training on immunisation and vaccine amongst Under Five children as they encourage women to go out in their communities asking their leaders and general community to take lead in the issues of immunisation and vaccine, so as for communities to understand better, they thought of coming up MCGs as a way to training and empowering these women to go out with actual messages.
“As we provide the trainings to make sure they understand issues of immunisation and vaccine as well as health systems, for them to take part, we have a topic that we train them in advocacy to make sure that they understand the issues that are affecting the community on Immunisation and vaccine and we encourage them to take to duty bearers to make sure that they take an initiative on development in their communities,” Mwale said.
He further said, this has to be bearing fruits as these women have been able to mobilize resources and construct clinics and houses for Health Surveillance Assistants (HSA’s), making sure that they are close to the community.
This is coming on the sidelines of a series of success stories collection which MHEN is conducting in different parts of the country to appreciate the impact these MCGs are bringing into their communities.
Ephridah Gwani chairperson at Chinkhwiri Health Center Mother Care Group in Traditional Authority Chinkhwiri, Dowa district commended this initiative as it has helped to empower women to work hand in hand with HSAs in so doing assisting in reaching high number of Immunisation and vaccine amongst Under Five children.
“We have been able to mobilize our fellow women to take children in all processes of Immunisation and vaccine as well as mobilizing resources to construct houses as well as clinics to provide health care workers with conducive working environment,”
She also added that through MCGs they have registered a rise in Immunisation and vaccine amongst Under Five children from 53% to 85%.
This is also the same with Mother Care Group in Traditional Authority Dzoole in Dowa as to what Idah Justin chairperson of Tithandizane MCG retaliate that since the exception of their group in 2019 there has been a significant improvement compared to what was happening in the past as women and duty bearers were not taking part in mobilizing vaccine uptake in their communities and she said they are committed to continue working with MHEN for improving health systems in their communities.
Group Village headman Chinkhwiri also said they are committed to continue supporting the initiative as it has brought significant improvement in reduction of pre-mature deaths in his community as children are now offered full doses of vaccine at an appropriate time through the efforts of MCGs in mobilizing other women to take crucial roles in protecting good health systems for their under five children.
“I have seen developmental activities coming out of this initiative through these MCGs, this is a commendable work indeed,” GVH Chinkhwiri said.
Chisomo Boxer, Health Surveillance Assistant at Dzoole Health Center, described the initiative as a gamer changer saying despite challenges, so far they have been able to some success highlighting some as championing for male involvement in Immunisation services as most men are now able to bring children to growth monitoring and Immunisation sessions, Reducing AFP cases through encouraging mothers to enable their children to receive IPV and 3 polio doses as well as increased Immunisation coverages in all areas where MCGs operate as at Dzoole they have increased Immunisation coverages above 88% in different areas including Mandala, Nyengere, Nalikonda, Chibweza as well as Nthanga just to mention a few.
“Despite success we also have challenges that are needed to be taken with serious attention revolving to mobility challenges as these MCGs need push bikes, lack of back packs for MCGs, lack of review meeting to monitor and evaluate MCG performances, successes, challenges encountered and draft recommendations on how best to scale up our service delivery as well as inadequate weighing scales as some clinics even use those used by vendors as well as lack of shelters in most outreach clinics and this becomes a challenge during rainy season,” Boxer highlighted.
Mother Care Group initiative was initiated way back by MHEN with support from Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and as of now journalists from different media houses across the country are on a media tour to appreciate some of the major success stories that have come out of the initiative.
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