By Vincent Gunde
The Partners in Health (PIH) will implement a two year’s project “Health Systems Strengthening for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Malawi” aimed at leveraging on existing comprehensive WHO-PEN programme to be implemented by the Ministry of Health.
The project is being powered by Sanofi’s Global Health Unit for sustainable impact to improve access to care for patients with Non-Communicable disease conditions (diabetes, hypertension, and selected cancers.
It will focus on innovative community awareness and engagement, case finding initiative, support capacity building of Healthcare Workers and defaulter tracing in the three districts of Lilongwe, Dowa and Mchinji.
Presenting the project to the District executive committee (Dec) in Dowa, PIH’s Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) and Mental Health Technical Assistant Noel Kasomekera, said the project is expected to improve access to care for patients with NCD conditions in the three districts of Lilongwe, Dowa and Mchinji.
Kasomekera said the project will conduct monitoring and evaluation of the activities implementation to assess the outputs and outcomes and advocacy targeting people in the community supported in parallel by local radio stations giving out information.
He said the project will also identify, propose and implement a sustainability plan on advocacy, and stakeholder engagement and dissemination of the project’s results as well as acknowledging Sanofi’s financial support to the project in all appropriate external communications.
The officer said the priority areas for health systems will include national engagement of stakeholders on NCDs capacity of the health workforce, client identification and referral system for NCDs and cancer component, strengthened and improved service delivery through access to medications.
“For the budget breakdown, there will be support group advocacy on NCDs and cancer, training of clinicians and nurses on NCDs and cancer, identification and referral, community members trained in early detection, health facilities supported to treat NCDs and cancer, among others,” said Kasomekera.
In her remarks, Dowa District Council’s Director of Planning and Development Mercy Mpakule, called on health partners to work together with the Partners in Health (PIH) /Abwenzi pa za umoyo for the project to achieve its intended outcomes in the district.
The Partners in Health/Abwenzi pa za umoyo will implement Health Systems Strengthening for NCDs in Malawi project with funds from Sanofi amounting to K156 million, Dowa alone will get MK52 million, the organization will be promoting district ownership in implementation by providing the finances, technical expertise, and alignment to donor requirements and deliverables.
