In Rwanda, This Training for Health Workers Improves Services for Children

By D éogratias Rwangabo Nkurunziza, Communication Officer Julienne, a health worker at the Shyogwe Health Center, monitors an infant ' s growth. Photo by D éogratias Rwangabo Nkurunziza for IntraHealth International.January 04, 2022Julienne Kampire is passionate about her job. She has been a nurse in charge of treating infants at the Shyogwe Health Center in Rwanda since 2015. However, like many of her colleagues, she didn’t feel confident following certain protocols, like the integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) protocol, a comprehensive tool for health workers who treat childhood illnesses.While the IMCI approach is a best practice that was adopted by Rwanda’s Ministry of Health in the early 2000s, many health workers view it as too complicated because they haven’t received the right training on it. Julienne was one of these health workers, and it led her to make some mistakes while treating children.“We used to treat only symptoms instead of focusing on the illness itself,” Julienne says.“For example, whenever we received children with diarrhea, we would immediately hospitalize them even though most of them didn’t need to be.”According to the IMCI protocol, children with mild dehydration can be hospitalized at a health center for up to six hours. Those under five with dangerous symptoms, such as severe dehydration, must be immediately transferred to the hospital. Children with diarrhea but no signs o...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Health workforce development Systems Health Workers Source Type: news