Project Fives Alive helps reduce under-five mortality
A project to help reduce under-five mortality in the country dubbed, “Project Fives Alive” has ended with a success story of reducing child mortality by 32 per cent in operational facilities.
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The project, which was implemented by the National Catholic Health Service and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service, was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Project Five Alives
The five-year project, is aimed at working with the health sector in Ghana to reduce under-five deaths.
It started in 2008 with only two districts and a Catholic diocese in the northern part of the country and had to be extended after the fifth year because of its compelling results.
The two districts are West Gonja in the Northern Region and Jirapa Lambussie in the Upper West Region, as well as the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese in the Upper East Region.
At the end of the project this year, 69 districts across the 208 regional and district hospitals in the country had been covered, with 80 per cent of the facilities, being public hospitals.
Briefing the Daily Graphic after the official closing ceremony, the Director of the project, Dr Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey, explained that the project was launched after the country had launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), among others to reduce under-five deaths.
Quality improvement
“Our approach was what we called quality improvement, meaning, we formed teams in the various hospitals and health centres and they began to look at their own performance to find out why children were dying in their facilities,” he explained.
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He said in certain instances, it was realised that the children were not brought to the hospital early enough, while in some cases, “even when the children were brought early, we did not treat them with urgency.”
Dr Sodzi-Tettey explained that such realisation triggered various fast-track mechanisms to improve healthcare.
He said where it was detected that the children were dying because they were not brought in early enough, the teams developed an outreach programme, in collaboration with local radio stations to educate parents to always report the least health concerns of their children to the nearest health centre.
Quality improvement teams
Dr Sodzi-Tettey disclosed that at the end of the project, 700 quality improvement teams had been formed and from time to time, all the teams met to share best practices and returned to their respective facilities to implement what they had learnt.
Postnatal care
He said PFA helped to demonstrate that the postnatal care policy rolled out by the GHS was feasible.
“The policy said that when a child is born, within the first week, we should see the child at least twice. When we started the project in 2008, we demonstrated how it could be done,” he said.
The Director of the Catholic Health Service, Mr George A. Adjei, said in spite of the numerous challenges the project faced, the joy was that the staff were focused on achieving the objective of the project.
He said the results of the project indicated that “we have been able to help reduce under-five mortality.”
Benefits of project
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the GHS, Dr Linda Vanotoo, in a statement, said she was happy that the team worked to ensure the survival of children and their mothers.
She said the project had helped staff of the various facilities to improve upon their data analysis used for decision-making, “which is one key area we have been fighting for.”
The Catholic Bishop of Koforidua, Most Rev Joseph Afrifah-Agyekum, who is also the church’s Episcopal Chairman for health, commended the staff for working as a team to achieve the objectives of the project.
Certificates of honour
All the staff on the projects were given certificates of honour and parting parcels for their dedication to the execution of the project.
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Writer’s Email: severious.dery@graphic.com.gh