HOW A POOR COMMUNITY IN MALI BECAME A TRAILBLAZER FOR TACKLING CHILD MORTALITY

This article is about a poor community in Mal that came up with a way to tackle child mortality.
Home to a large number of migrants and an even larger number of babies, Yirimadio is a heaving, ramshackle district on the outskirts of Bamako. Only a decade ago, it was a commune, much like any other on the Malian capital’s periphery. Now, it is the unexpected scene of a pioneering healthcare scheme. Child mortality rates here have dropped to the point where they are now the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. This is an achievement that may all be down to knocking on doors.

The scheme was launched in 2008. It's premise is simple: community health workers spend at least two hours, six days a week searching for patients door-to-door, providing free care to whoever needs it. Mali has long struggled to contain preventable infectious diseases such as malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea. Consequently, the country has the world’s sixth highest under-five child mortality rate, estimated at 115 deaths for every 1,000 births according to the most recent figures available. But by turning conventional healthcare on its head, sending health providers to patients at no cost, instead of requiring them to seek out fee-paying medical attention. Yirimadio achieved a spectacular turnaround. Between 2008 and 2015, the child mortality rate dropped from 154 deaths to seven for every 1,000 live births.

Experts have called the scheme extraordinary. They say it offers “very strong evidence” that universal healthcare can be both cost-effective and widely accessible.These results are really very impressive,” said Robert Yates, project director at the Centre on Global Health Security. “This is a part of the world where, generally, access to adequate healthcare is very difficult because of distances, costs and poor quality of services. But by removing user fees, providing free services, and going the extra mile by going into communities and treating sick children, the [scheme] has made primary health care extremely accessible.

I think that we can all, as developing countries and poor communities, learn from this scheme that Mali developed. It is a very powerful thing to be able to change an epidemic such as that of child mortality; that we have struggled on for decades. Ideas and innovations such as this one are the things that we should all strive to get. The government can really use such as scheme to adapt to our country because we still struggle with child mortality even though our healthcare services are advancing.


To read more, click on the link below:
https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/world/how-a-poor-community-in-mali-became-a-trailblazer-for-tackling-child-mortality/ar-BBKj0Py?ocid=spartanntp


Thank You For Reading. Please comment and share. H&W.