Burkina Faso/Health: Equipment to strengthen the health system
The President of Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, officially handed over materials and equipment to health structures in Ouagadougou on Thursday, July 25, 2024. The equipment was acquired as part of the Projet de préparation et de riposte au covid-19 (PPR covid-19) and the Projet de renforcement de soins de santé primaires pour l'amélioration de la santé et de la nutrition (PRSS-ASN).
The equipment officially handed over by the Head of State to health facilities in Burkina Faso's thirteen regions is sure to strengthen the country's healthcare system. The Projet de préparation et de riponse au covid-19 (PPR covid-19), with financial support from the World Bank, has acquired various items of equipment for the Health and Public Hygiene Department, health districts and outlying health centers. The equipment includes fourteen generators and 1,900 solar-powered refrigerators, which will improve the supply of vaccinations in the health districts and outlying health centers.The solar-powered equipment will improve vaccination coverage in the most remote areas. Many children do not receive vaccinations because some health centers do not have refrigerators for storing vaccines.
With these solar-powered refrigerators, all health centers in Burkina Faso will now have cold chain equipment to guarantee the quality of vaccines administered to the population. 110 electric freezers and thirteen refrigerated pick-up vehicles have also been acquired. These refrigerated vehicles will improve vaccine distribution times in the most remote areas of the country. Each region will now have a refrigerated vehicle for transporting vaccines to remote, sometimes isolated, communities. PPR-covid-19 has also acquired eleven pick-up and Prado TCL Station Wagon vehicles, eleven cold chambers and 835 tablets, which will be used to capture immunization data and help improve the national reporting system.
The total cost of this equipment is fourteen billion one hundred and sixty-two million two hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred and ninety (14,162,245,590) FCFA, half of which is a grant and half a loan.
Women's health a priority
The equipment acquired under the PPR-covid-19 program was not the only item handed over by Captain Ibrahim Traoré. At the ceremony, fifteen mobile clinics acquired by the Projet de renforcement de soins de santé primaires pour l'amélioration de la santé et de la nutrition (PRSS-ASN) were handed over by the Head of State to fifteen health facilities and the Office de santé des travailleurs. These mobile clinics, the first of their kind, are a healthcare delivery strategy advocated by the Burkinabe government, which aims to reach out to populations that are far from major hospitals and underprivileged.The mobile clinics are the first of their kind, and are a strategy favored by the Burkinabe government to provide primary and specialized care to underprivileged populations far removed from major hospitals, particularly in the treatment of female cancers.
Mobile clinics will be deployed in villages, the countryside and certain outlying areas of towns, to provide ultrasound scans, cervical and breast cancer screening, and care for children.
They are equipped with specialized care equipment: mammographs, ultrasound scanners, colposcopes, etc., and complementary health care materials. and complementary primary healthcare equipment: folding steel tents, collapsible medical examination tables, minor surgery boxes, battery-operated otoscopes, medical and obstetric stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors for children and adults, etc.
Each mobile clinic has three medical areas and a technical room: a customer reception and orientation area, a mammography area equipped with mammography equipment and an integrated Smart FINEDERe biopsy unit, and a gynecological consultation area equipped with an ultrasound scanner, a colposcope and a device for treating precancerous cervical lesions. The mobile clinic includes two 200-liter water tanks, one for clean water and the other for wastewater. It is also equipped with a 34 KVA electrical generator.
The capacity of the mobile clinics to provide care and services has been increased by the addition of 4x6-meter folding tents equipped and attached to each mobile clinic for nutrition, FP counseling and HIV testing, vaccination and pediatric services.
The health facilities benefiting from these mobile clinics have also received operating subsidies. A total of 160 million FCFA has been made available to fifteen public health establishments (EPS), i.e. an average of 10,500,000 FCFA per EPS per year for the operation of each mobile clinic.
The acquisition of these mobile clinics, as well as maintenance and operation for the first year, were financed by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to the tune of FCFA 5,612,518,633, of which FCFA 3,648,137,111 as a loan and FCFA 1,964,381,522 as a grant. The State of Burkina Faso is contributing 235,000,000 FCFA per year for the maintenance and operation of the mobile clinics from year 2, and 3,648,137,111 FCFA for loan repayment.
The President of Faso expressed his satisfaction with the equipment, which will bring health services closer to the most vulnerable populations. "The vision is to be able to provide health care to Burkinabè wherever they are," declared Captain Ibrahim Traoré. He took the opportunity to invite people to fight against malaria in this winter season, when malaria wreaks havoc, by cleaning up their living environment, by clearingand sleeping under long-acting impregnated mosquito nets.
The Minister of Health and Public Hygiene, Dr Robert Kargougou, was delighted to see this equipment, which will strengthen the health system, and urged health care providers to make good use of it.
Source: lefaso.net/
