Innovative package for frontline maternal, newborn and child health workers in South Sudan

Abstract

Improving maternal, newborn, and child health is a leading priority worldwide. It is a particularly urgent issue in South Sudan, which suffers from the world’s worst maternal mortality and among the worst newborn and child mortalities. A leading barrier to improving these health indices is limited frontline health worker capacity. In partnership with the Ministry of Health, the Division of Global Health and Human Rights (Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA) has developed and is currently implementing its novel Maternal, Newborn, and Child Survival (MNCS) Initiative throughout much of South Sudan. The purpose of MNCS is to build frontline health worker capacity through a training package that includes:

1. A participatory training course
2. Pictorial checklists to guide prevention, care, and referral
3. Re-useable medical equipment and commodities.

Program implementation began in November 2010 utilizing a training-of-trainers model. To date, 72 local trainers and 632 frontline health workers have completed the training and received their MNCS checklists and commodities. Initial monitoring and evaluation results are encouraging as further evaluation continues. This innovative training package may also serve as a model for building capacity for maternal, newborn, and child health in other resource limited settings beyond South Sudan.