Carol Bales

What’s So Rosy about Garden City?

Carol BalesThe walls. They’re the first thing you notice when you arrive at Garden City University College, a small school in Kumasi, Ghana. They’re painted a pale mauve. During the magic hour, when the sun’s low and red, the building and everyone in it glows.

The women who lead it. We’d come to document the school’s progress toward its goal of graduating more health workers, and we had hours of interviews lined up. Garden City’s leaders are stepping up to help address the country’s shortage of health workers. Ghana has fewer than half the minimum number of doctors, nurses, and midwives recommended by the World Health Organization to provide adequate access to health care.

So school leaders are using CapacityPlus tools to improve school management and identify cost-effective ways to educate more health workers. And we couldn’t help but notice that many of those leaders we met—from the new acting president to the dean of students—were powerful women who #MakeItHappen. Read more »

The Room Was Full to Support and Protect Vulnerable Children in Nigeria

Nigeria SSW report slideshow

 Click to view slideshow.

In December, the government of Nigeria launched a key report aimed at protecting orphans and vulnerable children in its Federal Capital Territory. IntraHealth’s USAID-funded CapacityPlus project contributed to the report and participated in the event.

The Child Protection System Strengthening Mapping and Assessment Report for Federal Capital Territory looks at the state’s child protection risks and gaps, and examines continuum of care, accountability mechanisms, and resource mobilization of the state’s existing child protection system. It ultimately aims to strengthen delivery of quality child protection services in the state.

According to the report, there are 17.5 million orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria. It’s estimated that 39% of children ages 5-14 are engaged in child labor; approximately 40% of children do not attend primary school; and as many as 40% of children may have been trafficked. Read more »

Emergency Care Comes into Focus in Ghana

Carol Bales and Gracey VaughnDr. Eno Biney is an emergency medicine specialist at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana. She’s part of a new cohort of health workers that are changing the way emergency care happens in the country.

See Dr. Eno Biney on the cover of Impact magazine. This issue is all about health workers.

“I chose to specialize in emergency medicine because I realized that it was one of the most lacking specialties in our country,” Eno says. “There wasn’t any form of organized emergency treatment of patients.”

Instead, Ghanaians injured in accidents or suffering from medical, surgical, or obstetric emergencies were rushed to feebly equipped emergency care centers that didn’t have specially trained health workers or triaging systems in place. During her medical training, Eno saw the resulting delays in diagnosis and treatment—and lost lives. Read more »

Programmers Embrace International Standards for Zimbabwe’s Health Worker Registry

Carol BalesThis post originally appeared on IntraHealth International’s Tumblr.

These programmers see the light and embrace international standards for the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care’s new national health worker registry.

The registry is a database that will pull together a basic set of data on health workers from various information systems in the country.

Once the data are available, health leaders can use them to make all kinds of decisions that can improve the health of Zimbabweans—from influencing health workforce policy to improving the delivery of clinical services. Read more »

Out of Midwifery School and Hard at Work

This post originally appeared on IntraHealth International’s Tumblr.

Now that smile is contagious!

Rosaline Osanebi delivered these beautiful twins during her clinical rotation at the Zuma Memorial School of Midwifery in Edo State, Nigeria.

She’s one of 2,065 students who earned scholarships from CapacityPlus. Read more »

Greater Support for the DRC’s Social Service Workers Leads to Better Care for Children

This post originally appeared on the Frontline Health Workers Coalition blog.

A young boy—we’ll call him Mani—was living on the streets of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He had no one to look after him, nowhere to go. He was just nine years old.

Mani’s situation is not unique. One quarter of all Congolese youth under age 18 are considered to be orphans and/or vulnerable children, according to the most recent Demographic and Health Survey. And nine out of ten don’t receive adequate financial, emotional, or other types of support. Read more »

Meet Eight Health Workers Who Love Their Jobs

This post originally appeared on VITAL, the blog of IntraHealth International.

“I love my job!” says one enthusiastic health worker in Laos. And he backs up his statement with a solid reason: “I like to save my patient’s life.”

Kenechanh Chanthapadith relates a typical day on the job, sharing an example about a woman who complained of abdominal pain. “I examined her and I found that she had an ectopic pregnancy,” he says. “I sent her immediately to Mahosot Hospital to get an operation. And she’s alive now!” Read more »

At the Source of Health Care, Health Workers

This post was originally published on VITAL, the blog of IntraHealth International.

Malik JafferMalik Jaffer is the deputy director of human resources for health and health systems strengthening for the IntraHealth International-led CapacityPlus project. I recently interviewed him about health worker heroes and what it’ll take to make more of them.

You’ve met a lot of amazing health workers over the past 20 years. Any who really inspired you?
Absolutely. For example, there’s a team of health workers in Soweto, South Africa, that work in a hospice. When I visited, the facility was full of men and women and a lot of children. I remember one baby that was suffering from AIDS. She looked about three months old and weighed only 10 or 12 pounds. She was tiny. But I came to find out she was a year old. Read more »

Two Projects Working Together to Strengthen the Health Workforce in Uganda

How can a global project and a country-specific project work together to strengthen the health workforce and increase access to quality care? What about in Uganda, where there are only 14 doctors, nurses, and midwives for every 10,000 people?

The CapacityPlus global project and the Uganda Capacity Program are both funded by USAID and led by IntraHealth International. CapacityPlus has worked in over 20 countries to address the health workforce shortage, and offers tools that can be adapted for any country. The Uganda Capacity Program builds the capacity of local Ugandan institutions—like ministries, professional health councils, and universities—to plan for, develop, and strengthen the management of health workers. Read more »

Strengthening Health Workforce Data for Improved Health Service Delivery

To improve health services, Uganda is focusing on the people that provide quality care. In our new video, Ugandan health workers, managers, and leaders show how the country’s efforts are paying off—and how service delivery has improved. The following story highlights one aspect of this work.

“My office is like a web. All information about human resources is needed in my office,” explains Ojulun Joreme. He’s the principal personnel officer for Dokolo District in Uganda. “Left and right I have to keep giving out information about each individual.” Read more »

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