Johns Hopkins affiliate Jhpiego receives $2.25 million to improve health
services in Mozambique
February 2006
Jhpiego, an international health affiliate of The Johns Hopkins University,
has been awarded $2.25 million by Chemonics International to streamline the health care system
and improve service delivery in Mozambique through a five-year program called FORTE MISAU.
Jhpiego's role in FORTE MISAU (Fostering Optimization of Resources and Technical
Excellence for National Health) is to provide technical assistance to the Mozambique Ministry
of Health to improve policies, strategies, guidelines and protocols on maternal and child health,
reproductive health, malaria in pregnancy, nutrition, emergency preparedness. As part of the
subcontract, Jhpiego will strengthen the systems that support the delivery of these services
by building the country’s capacity to educate, train and support health care personnel.
The goal of the project is to increase the use of child survival and
reproductive health services in target areas with an immediate result of increased
accountability in policy and management.
"Despite recent improvements in Mozambique, the health infrastructure and
delivery of services remain weak. We seek to strengthen the Ministry of Health's capacity
to reduce barriers at the provincial, district and community levels and increase access to
high-quality health care services for women and families," comments Dr. Leslie Mancuso,
President and CEO of Jhpiego.
The people of Mozambique have a healthy life expectancy—the equivalent number
of years in full health that a newborn child can expect to live—of only 36 for males and
37 for females according to the World Health Organization. This statistic is due to a variety
of factors, including food insecurity, lack of quality data on immunizations, high maternal
mortality and high burden of malaria and other communicable infectious diseases. The health
services network has not reestablished itself sufficiently since the end of the civil war
in 1992 and has failed to address the health needs of the dispersed population.
"Jhpiego's ultimate goal in this work is sustainability—leaving behind a
well-prepared network of health care professionals and a strong foundation that they can
build upon when we are gone," concludes Dr. Mancuso.
About Jhpiego
For 35 years, Jhpiego, (pronounced "ja-pie-go"), has empowered front-line health
workers by designing and implementing simple, low-cost, hands-on solutions that
strengthen the delivery of health care services, following the
household-to-hospital continuum of care. We partner with community- to
national-level organizations to build sustainable, local capacity through
advocacy, policy and guidelines development, and quality and performance
improvement approaches.
|
