IntraHealth Helps Improve Care Provided to Women with Obstetric Fistula in Mali

Obstetric fistula affects nearly two million women globally. In West Africa, women develop this condition following three to four percent of births. Although the condition is most often treatable and curable, many women go without treatment and instead are stigmatized because obstetric fistula is poorly understood by families, communities, and sometimes health workers.

In Mali, the Ministry of Health—along with its partners—developed a national strategy for improving the prevention and treatment of this condition. The Fistula Care Project is one of the integral partners in supporting this national strategy. Recognizing that providing high-quality prevention and treatment for obstetric fistula requires well-informed and committed health workers, the Fistula Care Project is training local health workers to counsel women and perform fistula repair surgery. To support this effort, the project is training managers to better supervise, monitor, and manage the staff caring for fistula patients, and to secure patients’ rights to high-quality treatment. Following a recent training, the 17 participants scored an average of 88% on a post-training test covering topics such as:

• Monitoring and improving the performance of health workers
• Using site visits to support health workers in providing high-quality care
• Facilitating teamwork and cooperation among staff
• Mentoring other facility managers to improve their supervisory skills
• Making better use of available staffing data.

During the training, participants—who were regional supervisors, program managers, and clinical staff from Gao, Mopti, Segou, Point G, and the National Health Directorate—also developed action plans that outlined concrete steps for improving the quality of obstetric fistula prevention and treatment services at their treatment sites.

The Fistula Care Global Project is led by EngenderHealth and managed in Mali by IntraHealth International. The project is funded by USAID.