“It’s just a matter of time before KwaZulu-Natal rural communities turn the tide on child mortality with the exciting development of our Phila Mntwana centres,” says World Vision’s Leader in Okhahlamba, Monika Holst.
The Phila Mntwana (which means ‘lead a child’) centres are designed to provide comprehensive prevention and health promotion package for children at community level through community leadership as well as offering access to maternal, child and women’s health services.
Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) has been a critical public health problem among children under age of five years in KwaZulu-Natal rural communities, and medical opinion states that children with SAM have a significantly higher risk of mortality than well-nourished children. Many of the deaths due to SAM are avoidable and can be attributed to poor access and coverage of effective preventive, promotive and low-cost curative interventions.
Given this reality and taking World Vision’s Child Health Now campaign into account which aims to prevent child mortality in under-five’s and unborn babies, WV has become a natural partner in this initiative, joining hands with Operation Sukuma Sakhe (OSS), the Department of Health, and BroadReach Healthcare.
“Government has long procurement processes, which sometimes frustrate the work on the ground, as was the case with these centres,” says Monika. Without World Vision’s intervention, these centres would not have been this fully operational as the equipment (baby scales, thermometers and stationery) was provided by World Vision.
The Phila Mntwana centres have been established in all 84 wards in Ugu district (south of Durban and inland), with referral systems in place to other health facilities. The emphasis of the centres is on the simple diagnosis of the status of children in the community, achieved by monthly monitoring of the nutritional and health status of all children under five at community level.
The centres offer the communities access to basic health services that include ante-natal care, post-natal care, planned and emergency deliveries, prevention of mother to child transmission, child health services, chronic diseases, minor ailments, emergency care, HIV counselling and testing, communicable diseases, fast queue services, referrals and nurse administered antiretroviral treatment.