Improving Maternal and Newborn Health in Nepal

Project Description

The Programme ‘Support to the Health Sector Programme (S2HSP)’ Nepal is managed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The project ‘Improving Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH) with a focus on emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) and the referral system” aims to systematically improve the quality of basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care at the decentralised district level by supporting continued skills development, facility quality improvement and the development of a functioning referral system.

This component aims to systematically improve the quality of basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care at the decentralised district level by supporting continued skills development, by strengthening decentralised management, enhancing facility and service management and supporting the development of a functioning referral system.

This is to be achieved by forming strong synergies between the S2HSP components of institutional development of midwifery education and quality management at service delivery level.

The M4h led team supported a comprehensive approach to strengthening the skills and competency base of Skilled Birth Attendants (SBAs) and other key management and clinical staff working at facility level.

Scope of work

M4h in consortium with Evaplan and Options has implemented the component using an integrated systemic approach to Quality Improvement (QI).

The project consists of three key fields of activity, each of which will contribute to objectives:

Activity Area 1: Improve the quality and availability of emergency obstetric and newborn care

Activity Area 2: Enhance institutional capacity for facility management and quality improvement

Activity area 3: Improve the referral system for equitable access to emergency obstetric and newborn care

Detailed activities and outcomes

• Strengthening clinical mentoring/skills-based support:
• Improving in service training: targeted support to Skilled Birth Attendant (SBA) training sites, district hospitals, primary health care centres and selected strategic birthing centres
• Strengthening links between health facilities and communities:
• Enhancing the capacity of health facility management and service providers to improve the management of health facilities: based on (practice-oriented in-service training) and orient from the needs and targets identified through the Minimum Service Standards and Quality Improvement Process approaches.
• Providing support to health facility management staff and selected committee:
• Developed a comprehensive Training Manual for Health Facility Management Coaching for District Level Hospitals,
• Supported implementation of Mentoring Action Plans through in-service training & mentoring:
• Supported implementation of referral guidelines: Linking quality improvement with performance in referral.
• Monitoring and Evaluation support tracking health service uptake of services. In this context carried out regular data collection and analysis using an online data capture tool.