Lena Vorias
Country: USA
Background: Public Health
Research Project: An Assessment of the Quality and Appropriateness of the Maternal Health Services Provided by the Majengo Health Centre in Moshi, Tanzania.
Objectives: To assess the quality and appropriateness of the maternal health services provided by the Majengo Health Centre.
Methods: A convenience sampling method was used to recruit participants from the Majengo Health Centre. The principal investigator conducted key-informant interviews with 10 health care professionals employed by the clinic and 14 patients utilizing or have utilized the clinic’s maternal health services.
Results: Findings of this study suggest an overall ability of Majengo Health Centre to attain the appropriate basic maternal health routine services. However, the analysis of findings promoted questions of the clinic’s ability of overall sustainability due to the lack of resources, which allows enhancement of the clinic’s capacity of quality. Essential resources required for maternal health includes the access and availability of funding, equipment, health education, medical supplies, technology, medicines and the direct access to emergency obstetric care. Although all these were at some given time present, Majengo Health Clinic is not capable of sustaining and maintaining their presence.
Conclusions: Despite the localized success of preventing maternal mortality, the Majengo Health Centre suffers from overarching issues of sustainability. Due to its inconsistent access to necessary resources, the clinic is contributing to the lack of likelihood of achieving the fifth Millennium Development Goal. Thus, in addition to enhancing the availability of resources and sustainability, developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, must efficiently identify service gaps in order to make progress towards the reduction of maternal mortality.
Keywords:
maternal health services, appropriateness, quality, provision of care, experience of care
Word Count: 13,799