Training, Supervision & Clinical Services
Achievements
| Activities | Child
Health
The DISH II Project supported the Ministry of Health
(MOH) strategies on Child Health with a special focus
on developing sustained technical and operational
capacity within the 12 DISH II-supported districts
and their health sub-districts to contribute to the
reduction of infant and child mortality by the end
of the project. Specifically, the objective was to
work with the MOH, as well as with USAID cooperating
agencies (especially BASICS and MOST) and other international
partners (WHO, UNICEF, EDF) to:
- Build district and health sub-district capacity
for child health activities;
- Improve the growth and development of children;
- Reduce the frequency and severity of illness in
children under five years of age; and
- Reduce death among the under fives.
To review the complete Child Health Strategy, click
here
Selected Interventions
- Home Based Management of
Fever/Malaria: The project supported the distribution
of pre-packaged anti-malaria for under-fives through
community distributors in selected sub-county
of Kamuli, assisted the Ministry of Health, WHO
and UNICEF design a national communication strategy
for malaria and to prepare and develop media materials.
-
Immunisation: The
DISH II Project assisted the MOH to develop
and implement a communication strategy for
revitalisation of routine immunisation including
the addition of new vaccines against Hepatitis
B and Haemophilus influenzae type b. DISH
II also participated in a massive effort to
orient all health workers about the additional
vaccines during 5-day training courses. The
project also worked with the district of Masaka
to improve micro planning for immunisation
outreaches and is supporting 10 districts
to sensitise leaders about routine immunisation.
- Infant/Child Nutrition: In this category,
the strategy focused on 4 main elements including
exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months
of life, complementary feeding from 6 months to
2 years, growth monitoring/promotion and Vitamin
A supplementation. The DISH II Projected supports
its 12 districts to implement these programs through
various channels including printing materials,radio
programs and spots, child health days, training
for community based health workers to conduct
growth monitoring and promotion, community drama,
television spots and programmes. DISH II also
worked hand in hand with the MOST Project and
the Ministry of Health to introduce Vitamin A
months every May and November, beginning in 2002.
- IMCI Case Management: There are three components
of IMCI including: 1) improving health worker
skills for managing sick children; 2) improving
health facility support systems for child care
and 3) the community and household component.
The project supported the district in all three
areas.
- Private Health Sector: When project evaluation
surveys indicated that most parents use private
health providers when their children are sick,
the project turned its attention to developing
an approach to orient private providers to the
IMCI approach. In January and February 2002, the
project assisted the MOH to pilot test a curriculum
to help private providers discover their own strengths
and weakness and define a plan of improvement.
A copy of the training guide and guidelines for
monitoring and documentation are below.
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