Presenting the Home-Based Life Saving Kekeli Women!
They’re back at it! The Kekeli Women completed Part 1 of a new program aimed to reduce maternal mortality in their communities. The women met in June over a two week period in Eastern Ghana to further improve their skills. Previously trained in basic sanitation and hygiene, malaria prevention, and many other health topics, the RHC moved to expand their skills to include pregnancy and labor.
Our five-member volunteer team recently returned from a three week trip to Akatsi and are excited by the progress of the program! The team included three labor & delivery nurses, a nurse midwife, and one physician. Together they taught a program called Home Based Life Saving Skills (HBLSS).
A few notes about the program:
- It prevents complications related to pregnancy by educating pregnant women and their families
- It teaches community members to recognize danger signs in pregnancy and labor (too much bleeding, etc)
- It teaches communities how to provide basic first aid and stabilize patients when things go wrong
- It helps communities make referral plans ahead of time so people who need care can get it as quickly as possible
It is an amazing program and was very well received by the women. They said they felt more confident when facing difficult situations and that their training set them apart in their communities. They committed to train a group of community members from each of their villages over the coming months.
Some have asked if the Kekeli Women will become midwives through this program. No, HBLSS will not train the Kekeli Women to be skilled birth attendants–such a program would be full time, take over a year to complete, and often results in trainees leaving their own communities to work in larger locales. Rather, we aim to reinforce the national policy that birth should take place in hospitals. In this context, HBLSS is a backstop to prevent complications in the births that still occur at home–about half of all pregnancies in Akatsi.
The women completed HBLSS Part 1 of 3 this June. We will return twice over the next year to finish Parts 2 and 3. HBLSS is the foundation of our new Kekeli curriculum and you will continue to hear more about it over the coming years!
