Project profile — Protecting the Health of Mothers and Newborns



Overview 

CA-3-S065669001
$4,180,189
University of Alberta (CA-CRA_ACR-0010009266)
2013-01-28 - 2018-04-30
Closed
Global Affairs Canada
MFM Global Issues & Dev.Branch

Country / region 

• Ethiopia (100.00%)

Sector 

• Health, General: Medical education/training (12181) (25.00%)
• Basic health care:
Basic health care (12220) (50.00%)
Health personnel development (12281) (25.00%)

Policy marker 

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

Description 

This initiative aims to improve the skills of 200 primary health workers and 4,500 midwives to deliver healthy babies, benefiting more than 50,000 women and 100,000 children in a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. This project also strengthens the skills of health specialists and officers to deal with emergency birthing situations, and contributes to building the institutional capacity of the two local partners, the Federal Ministry of Health and St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College. This project seeks to reduce the incidence of illness and death in mothers during childbirth and in the period just before and just after, by enhancing the teaching and clinical skills of key frontline workers in the Ethiopian health system involved in maternal and newborn health.

Expected results 

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: increased use of good quality skilled birth attendants among expectant mothers; increased use of improved referral system for emergency birthing situations; and enhanced institutional environment to support sustainable, equitable and gender sensitive maternal health services.

Results achieved 

Results achieved as of the end of the project (April 2018) include: (1) 103 midwifery educators, also known as senior midwife tutors (SMT), from 55 midwifery educational institutions across Ethiopia were trained. The majority of graduates of SMT training program reported that its content was relevant to filling their knowledge and skills gaps as instructors and midwife practitioners; (2) opportunities to practice midwifery skills were created for several midwife tutors who had no prior experience of attending labor during their previous educational experiences; (3) 51 institutions each received a donation of two clinical simulation dolls to use for training of staff; (4) 575 participants attended training sessions on topics related to maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH), of which more than half of the trainees were women and the majority (90.2%) of these women were from North Shoa zone; (5) 1,250 caesarian sections and 3,302 obstetrical ultrasound examinations were performed between 2015 and 2017, which minimized unnecessary referrals to other health centres, and allowed mothers and newborns to receive services close to where they live; (6) obstetric referrals from Fiche Hospital to St. Paul’s Hospital Millenium Medical College (SPHMMC) were decreased from 107 per year in 2015 to 6 per year in 2017 demonstrating that the skills learned allowed to provide services in more regions; (7) the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths declined despite an increase in the number of deliveries; (8) research capacity building was provided to SPHMMC’s staff and other stakeholders, as well as training on Health Management Information Systems (HMIS); (9) facilitation services and provision of financial support was provided for observing-visits at Canadian health institutions and participation in international and national conferences; (10) training on MicroResearch (MR) was provided to 82 participants from SPHMMC and other stakeholders which helped to address knowledge and skill gaps of research team members; (11) financing was provided for 14 small research projects on MNCH topics, and the research was conducted by multidisciplinary teams from SPHMMC; and (12) two of the health centres in SPHMMC’s catchment area were converted to primary care centres with the capacity to perform caesarian sections, which has resulted in less cases being referred to SPHMMC and the two primary care centres being able to take on additional cases from SPHMMC when they have too many patients.

Budget and spending 


Original budget $223,354
Planned disbursement $0
Transactions
Country percentages by sector
Type of finance Aid grant excluding debt reorganisation
Collaboration type Bilateral
Type of aid Other technical assistance
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