Organization for Promotion of Health & Community Development

 

Funding appeal for

Quality Improvement of Malalai Maternity Hospital, Kabul

February 2022

 

The Kabul Malalai Maternity Hospital is the referral point for most of the health centers in neighboring provinces for advanced quality treatment and care. However, most hospitals including Malalai do not have proper space and facilities such as waiting areas to accommodate patients’ caretakers who accompany the patients from distant locations. As a result, they face difficulties in finding safe accommodation in Kabul, especially during the nights. The caretakers’ presence at the hospital during the hospital stay of their relative is essential to help purchase prescribed medications and other supplies from private pharmacies in the town, due to the lack of most essential medications and supplies in the hospital.

Kabul hospitals have no canteens to offer free meals for these caretakers who are poor and unemployed. Health assessment data shows that 39% of Afghans borrow money from their friends and relatives when they need health care.

The Malalai Maternity Hospital is not a baby-friendly/child-friendly environment and cannot provide a safe and enjoyable space for the children of patients receiving treatment or for health service staff while they are at work. The insufficient bare minimum attention and the limited resources provided by the authorities of the previous government has been stopped since August 2021 after the transition of power to the current regime.

Many of the hospitals in Kabul, including the Malalai Maternity Hospital, have been facing severe shortages of essential medicines and other medical supplies due to the high demand for the services in crisis after the change of the government. Furthermore, this increased demand combined with a lack of resources and a higher volume of patients, have resulted in poor hygiene and infection prevention practices in these hospitals. The stopping of supplies and health care workers’ wages after the take-over of the government by the current regime are the main reasons behind this shortcoming.

The humanitarian assistance provided by the WHO, UNICEF, ICRC and the IOM to maintain the public hospital sector is insufficient and as a result there are still gaps in the public health sector for serious considerations.

Under these prevailing conditions, a majority of people who need healthcare services for their non communicable diseases, do not get their routine medications and health checkups at regular clinics. Also, mental health related concerns are on the rise.

People living in such vulnerable situations rush to public hospitals, due to security and safety concerns in the growing economic crisis in the absence of any social security systems to feed their hunger and the need to find safer places to survive until they feel safe to restart their lives.

This proposed intervention for the improvement of hospital quality of care, is developed by focusing on the above-mentioned hospital needs, which are mostly hampered or not considered as priorities by the hospital management and the donor agencies due t resource constraints. However, the OPHCD, being a community based non-governmental agency that works in close coordination with local communities, has identified the above needs as essential for a greater impact on the overall quality of care at Malalai Hospital and submits this proposal for fundraising.

Overall objective : To provide supplementary support to Malalai maternity hospital to fulfill its mandatory maternal and newborn care services at satisfactory level

Specific Objectives :

1. To reconstruct/ renovate waiting areas with a small hospital canteen for both male and female patients’ care takers to provide accommodation and food.
2. To reconstruct/ renovate safer kindergarten to accommodate children of patients and hospital workers; provide essential educational and recreation items and daily meals for children and pay incentives for kindergarten teachers.
3. To provide supplementary infection prevention materials to support hospital Infection Prevention practices
4. To provide complementary supplies to meet patients emerging needs.

Beneficiaries of the project are mainly divided in direct and indirect categories:

• Direct beneficiaries: patient caretakers, and children of the kindergarten are the direct beneficiaries of 1^st and 2^nd component of the project while the 3^rd and 4^th component of project activities will directly benefit patients who attend the hospital.

Indirect beneficiaries: at the same time patients and the hospital staff can benefit from these components indirectly

Expected result/Output project

• Provided facilities and services to 80 patients’ care takers/day and to 14,640 patients care takers in terms of waiting area accommodation and necessary foods for 6 months
• Provided space, early childhood development education and recreational materials, nursing care and foods for 30 children/day and total of 5490 children of patients and hospital personnel for 6 months.
• Provided disposable compress, cord clamps, syringe, gloves, and bandage gauze for around 500 deliveries/month and for total of 3000 deliveries for 6 months.
• Provided infection prevention materials with a total cost of 1000 USD/month and of 6000 USD for 6 months

Total Budget : 108,382 USD