In 1989, the Republic of Benin was facing a great social and
economical crisis. Civil servants of all the sectors in public
administration were on strike. People did not know where to
go for their healt
...
h care. Salaries were not paid for more than
six months and life for the general population was very dificult.
The country was about to degenerate into civil war as a
result of the civil unrest in the country.
Thanks to the assistance from the French, and Canadian
and American Mennonite missionaries, the Bethesda Health
Centre was started in 1990 with US$ 1,000 granted by theses
partners. Today, the Health Centre of Bethesda has expanded
and has become a large Hospital in Cotonou. It hosts each
year about 100,000 patients and has developed the department
of paediatrics, ophthalmology, stomatology, cardiology,
obstetrical gynaecology, X-rays, etc. The Hospital has also
put in place an AIDS service which has been promoted by the
government to the status of an AIDS Treatment Centre.
In an integrated vision, Bethesda has established other departments.
In 1993, the Sanitation department was established
to implement sanitation and environmentally-friendly
projects aimed at reducing the high incidence of some diseases
frequently treated at the hospital. In 1996, the decision
was made to establish a micro-inance department called
PEBCo. This initiative, which currently has 10,000 clients,
uses community savings to promote income-generating activities.
Since many women were obliged to use the loans for
family needs (health care, children schooling, etc.), they were
unable to reimburse them as planned. Hence the Bethesda
non-government organization (NGO) recently began an initiative
to provide a community-based health insurance option
for the population in 2006. There are now 12,000 members.
This paper focuses on the presentation of Benin and the program,
but also describes how the project could be better improved
and what were its beneits and impacts.
Field Actions Science Reports
The journal of field actions
Vol. 4 | 2010
Vol. 4
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Unpreparedness of health professionals to address non-communicable diseases (NCD) at peripheral health facilities is a critical health system
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challenge in Mozambique. To address this weakness and decentralize NCD care, training of the primary care workforce is needed. We describe our experience in the design and implementation of a cascade training of trainers (ToT) intervention to strengthen the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease.
more
This 2016-2020 public-private mix strategic plan (PPM SP) is a 4-year framework designed to guide the National TB Control Programme (NTP) and its partners to implement PPM in Bangladesh. It provides goals, strategies and interventions for expanding
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and scaling up current PPM models and outlines approaches to further enhance and strengthen PPM coordination and partnerships among NTP, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private health providers
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The Atlas of health and climate is a product of this unique collaboration between the meteorological and public health communities. It provides sou
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nd scientific information on the connections between weather and climate and major health challenges. These range from diseases of poverty to emergencies arising from extreme weather events and disease outbreaks. They also include environmental degradation, the increasing prevalence of noncommunicable diseases and the universal trend of demographic ageing.
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The objectives of the scheme is to promote cleanliness, hygiene and infection control practices in public health care facilities, to incentivize and recognize such
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public healthcare facilities that show exemplary performance in adhering to standard protocols of cleanliness and infection control, to inculcate a culture of ongoing assessment and peer review of performance related to hygiene, cleanliness and sanitation, to create and share sustainable practices related to improved cleanliness in public health facilities linked to positive health outcomes.
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This Guide helps all the health care providers in the non- public sector to explore alternative means of access to contraceptives and skills to determine quantities required and management of stock.
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Health care providers include community health workers, nurses and midwives, clinical officers and medical doctors.
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South Eastern European Journal of Public Health, EEJPH 2016, posted: 11 January 2016. DOI 10.4119/UNIBI/SEEJPH-2016-85
The scope of this PPC document is to serve as a guide to address the unmet public health need for a PPE system that protects the HW-F in tropical climate
s while caring for patients and providing h
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eavy duty essential health services.
The characteristics described in this guidance are targeted for PPE used in
health clinics, hospitals and communities in low resource settings where there is lack of advanced environmental controls and equipment. The purpose is to ensure harmonization in PPE design and its use to avoid confusion and exacerbating the risk of infections in HW-F. The principles of this PPC document can also be considered in risk reduction strategies
in other healthcare settings.
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The strategic plan reflects shared commitments to enhance collaboration between environmental, animal (wildlife and domestic) and human health, and building new One Health workforce capacity through
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higher institutions of learning. The strategy also outlines interventions to be undertaken by government institutions and other partners to enhance existing structures and pool together additional resources to prevent and control zoonotic diseases and other events of public health importance. Successful implementation of the strategy will contribute to the realization of vision 2020 by improving public health, food safety and security, and hence significantly improve the socioeconomic status of the people of Rwanda. It is in this regard that we call upon implementing institutions, bilateral and multilateral partners, civil society and the private sector to join us in implementing the One Health strategy in Rwanda.
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Policy Note: Thailand Health Systems in Transition
By 2002, Universal Health Coverage was achieved through three public insurance schemes: the C
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ivil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme (CSMBS) for civil servants and their dependents, Social Health Insurance (SHI) for formal sector employees, and the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS) for the remainder of the population.
The establishment of these three schemes has changed the way health care is financed. A supply-led system, under which all Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) health facilities received an annual budget allocation from the MOPH, has now been completely replaced by a system in which the three public purchasers - separated through a purchaser-provider split - manage a demand-led system of financing.
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Women and Health Initiative Working Paper No. 1. Women and Health Initiative
Improving maternal health in the context of the sub-Saharan African
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HIV epidemic requires greater understanding of the relationships between HIV disease and maternal morbidity and mortality, integrated and effective responses by the health system, and a social context which promotes quality care and encourages use of MCH and HIV services. Advancing the proposed research agenda will make an invaluable contribution by generating needed evidence for policy and practice that improves the maternal health of women who are living with HIV, as well as those who are not. Bringing together maternal health and HIV researchers, policy-makers and program implementers to reduce HIV-related maternal morbidity and mortality and improve the HIV response for women represents an opportunity and a challenge.
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This report, written in partnership with various Royal Medical Colleges and Public Health England, sets out the essential actions to improve the physical
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health of adults with severe mental illness (SMI) across the NHS. The report makes practical recommendations for changes that will help adults with SMI to receive the same standards of physical healthcare as the general population and reduce the risk of premature death.
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This document aims to assist policy‑makers, health care providers and researchers to understand key concepts in health ethics and to identify basic ethical questions surrounding
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health and health care. It illustrates the challenges of applying ethical principles to global public health and outlines practical strategies for dealing with those challenges.
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Social distancing is the deliberate increasing of physical space between people to stop or slow down the spread of a highly contagious illness. It is a strategy sometimes recommended by public health
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officials during pandemics. For mental health professionals, the challenges that accompany social distancing can place significant roadblocks to daily work. Some agencies and organizations may struggle to continue to provide critical services while also protecting employees’ health.
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Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, health is receiving unprecedented public and political attention. Yet the fact that climate change also presents us with a
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health crisis deserves further recognition. From more deaths due to heat stress to increased transmission of infectious diseases, climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health in ways that are profound and far-reaching. The fundamental interdependency of human health and the health of the environment is encapsulated in the concept of planetary health, a scientific field and social movement that has been gaining force since the 2015 publication of the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission report “Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch”.
We see an urgent need for strategic communication to raise awareness of climate-health synergies in order to overcome the misperception that climate and health are two independent agendas. The fragmented and sector-focused nature of thinking and action remains a significant barrier to integrating health considerations into climate planning and project development. Inevitably, collaboration across sectors requires a community of practice. Despite recent efforts focused on the climate-health nexus, much work remains to be done to translate scientific findings for policymakers, mobilise climate financing resources in support of health co-benefits, and promote genderjust solutions within climate change projects.
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Ukrainian decentralization reform has increased and democratized local government responsibility for health care at the level of local government closest to communities and has increased regional and local government responsibility for
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public health. Decentralization affects health system reform in three important areas: health financing, individual health services and public health.
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The classification of digital health interventions (DHIs) categorizes the different ways in which digital and mobile technologies are being used to support health system needs. Historically, the di
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verse communities working in digital health—including government stakeholders, technologists, clinicians, implementers, network operators, researchers, donors— have lacked a mutually understandable language with which to assess and articulate functionality. A shared and standardized vocabulary was recognized as necessary to identify gaps and duplication, evaluate effectiveness, and facilitate alignment across different digital health implementations. Targeted primarily at public health audiences, this Classification framework aims to promote an accessible and bridging language for health program planners to articulate functionalities of digital health implementations.
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This is the ninth paper in our series, “Community Health Workers at the Dawn of a New Era”. Community health workers (CHWs) are in an intermediary position between the
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health system and the community. While this position provides CHWs with a good platform to improve community health, a major challenge in large-scale CHW programmes is the need for CHWs to establish and maintain benefcial relationships with both sets of actors, who may have diferent expectations and needs. This paper focuses on the quality of CHW relationships with actors at the local level of the national health system and with communities.
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In this report, potential reasons for this apparent
contradiction between cherished human values
and observed social actions are explored with a
view to better formulating concrete steps that
governments and other stakeholders can take to
reshape social attitudes and
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public policy.
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1. Provide treatment for mental disorders in primary care
2. Ensure wider accessibility to essential psychotropic drugs
3. Provide care in the community
4. Educate the public
5. Involve communities, families and consumers
6. Establish national
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policies, programmes and legislation on mental health
7. Develop human resources
8. Link with other sectors
9. Monitor community mental health
10. Support relevant research.
more