Health Care - Actual
| History | Actual | Future |
SAB and Kuweeri are intensifying their cooperation to expand the Centre de Santé “Solidarity” in Koutchagou (CSSSK)!
Will you help us to realize this goal?
Since 2003 SAB has been in contact with the Health Center CSSK and has been cooperating intensively since 2005. By collaborating closely with the Health Center CSSK, SAB has been able to determine the current situation. Therefore, SAB is able to identify plans that are feasible and those which are not possible at this time. Because Marjan en Jetse live in Benin and are so integrated with the local situation it is expected that the extension to the healthcenter will succeed and in the (distant) future develop into a full hospital. Now we aim to expand the maternity ward, create a rest house for pregnant women and malnourished children and build a laboratory. And for this we need your financial support!
The Health Center in Koutchagou is a private clinic, set up by the NGO Kuweeri and has social input. The CSSK serves as a model for the entire region.
Why?
  The project has also been approved by the Wild Geese. However, due to a lack of funding, Wild Geese cannot support the project with financing. However, they will assist us with counsel and action.Het The Healthcenter in Koutchagou
Therefore, we will extend our care by supporting Solidarité in Koutchagou the policlinic in the district Natta, the Centre the Santé in Koutchagou, in their development plans to create a complete health centre with sufficient beds in both the maternity ward and the sickbay.
Situation now:
The admissions capacity in the healthcenter “la Solidarité” is too small. There are 12 places and routinely someone must lie in the corridor.
We want to help the existing center in Koutchagou to be a better equipped and organized health center where the population can count on receiving affordable, accessible, and acceptable healthcare. This contributes as well to the economic development of this region. After all, if parents are healthy and can work then their children have the opportunity to go to school and therefore the children do not have to take responsibility for contributing to the family income. The total development plan will cost € 215.000
€ 30.000 has already been reserved, the NCDO has pledged € 50,000, so we are well on our way.
The fund committee members include Nico Rijnens, Ab Rijbroek, Lisette Havermans and Bert Eillert and you will soon hear about who, what, where and how!
The first building has been realized thanks to the pledge. This is a terrific stimulus to the population and the personnel. Temporarily we are using this future relief/reception house for woman and undernourished children as our maternity clinic. If the whole project is built then this building will revert to its original function so the women who must come from far away can find shelter with us in the rest house house.
 Below you can read further information on the health centre in Koutchagou.
New Project
At present in Koutchagou is a policlinic managed by the Beninese NGO, Kuweeri, which was established in 1997. Kuweeri has also established policlinics in Nanadagé and Parakou. These clinics are independent and manage only with the help of foreign organizations and in the case of Nanadagé with additional support from the government. Kuweeri was created by a group of local people (doctor, pharmacist, high school principal and a local development consultant) who want to do something together for the population in Northern Benin. Poverty is significant however it varies by region. Economically the north lags behind the rest of Benin (nevertheless Benin is a poor land, number 95 of 103 on the Human Poverty Index 2005). Basic healthcare was not accessible for the population.
The contractual collaboration between SAB and Kuweeri only covers the Centre de Santé la Solidarité in Koutchagou. Over the years, this Centre has gained a good reputation. This is due to the fact that the healthcare is provided with minimum cost to the patient, on a non-profit basis, and the employees are well trained and motivated to listen to the patient. None of these features is common in healthcare in Benin. This healthcare has been delivered to a large number of patients, however for many people the low cost of care is still high and therefore the very poorest of the population still has no access to basic healthcare.
The building needs considerable maintenance and is too small for the number of patients. Medical supplies are severely limited and the quality of care is at stake, in spite of all the energy that has been applied. Employees are highly motivated but the circumstances have created a workload with high pressure. In the current situation the governing board members (doctor and pharmacist) are helping the staff but requests have come for training due to the need to improve the knowledge level of the staff.
Since November 2003 SAB has had contact with and helped Kuweeri with goods for the health center. This cooperation is further expanded with the efforts of Jetse Postma and Marjan Kroone’s cooperation with the staff of Koutchagou. In addition, the local optician from Boukombé 1, trained by SAB, will go to Koutchagou one day a week to measure people for glasses. The local pharmacy assistant, trained by SAB Boukombé, will cooperate in Koutchagou 2-3 times per week to ensure the pharmaceutical supplies are up to date (not expired) and that the medications are administered appropriately.
Capacity-building:
SAB is collaborating with Kuweeri to establish an adult training program for the region with both Dutch and Beninese doctors, pharmacists and obstetricians. These local professors will also be trained in training techniques. In this manner, obstetricians and nurses can pass on their knowledge after they themselves are trained (as an observer of the training program) to their assistants in the health center, the local midwives and the health workers in the villages. The training topics will be given by both the health center of Boukombé and Koutchagou. All health centers in the region (a total of 8) will have the opportunity to participate. Recently we have been visited an obstetrician who teaches in the obstetric academy in Groningen, the Netherlands. She is on an orientation visit with us and has also accompanied us to walks to the villages to research the inventories of the various health centers. She is also interviewing local obstetricians using a questionnaire and visiting both market booth clinics in Boukombé and Koutchagou to learn the problems of the experienced practitioners.
We also want to collaborate with this center’s policy so that it can become economically independent in the long run. At that time they could be incorporated in the government program by using contacts and appointments between FSAB and the government. The following advantages would then result:
We have planned to reorganize the health center in Koutchagou and to accomplish all the above developments with Kuweeri. We want to expand to a full clinic with sufficient capacity to address patient relief as well as medical facilities and staff.
Koutchagou is not entirely independent. They are not able to invest in buildings or training. We expect to be able to give a big incentive by offering aid for increasing the number of rooms, training more staff, support for both organization and policy levels and to create a reciprocal knowledge transfer. This input will stimulate the current staff to remain and to attract other professionals.
Construction activities
We want to extend the existing block. Moreover we want to set up three new buildings; a relief house for pregnant women and undernourished children, a maternity ward and a patient admission block.
These plans would allow two nurses/doctors to do simultaneous consultations, enlarge the current pharmacy and support an addition of a laboratory for first line analysis to confirm clinical diagnoses to allow for targeted treatment of patients and better antenatal care for pregnant women.
At this moment, the toilets are broken and in this is a research/labor chamber created. Patient hospitalization takes place in the consultation spaces and the consultations occur in the space that was planned as a store. This situation illustrates the need for the expansion of current health facility.
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