Stories: Children, Community, Future

When she got pregnancy for the first time in 2009, Chuc used to visit the commune health centre to check up for her health. It was located about three kilometers far from her home. It was an old building with four small rooms and broken roof located next to the resident’s houses. There was not any room for children and pregnant women to sit down for waiting after checking up or vaccination injection. Every day, the health staff had to walk around to collect water because of the lack of water and sanitation supplying system.

Chuc is a woman who lives in Thu Phong commune. She has two children. Each pregnancy period gave her different life experience about health care services at the same health centre.

“The health centre’s services was limited regarding staff’s capacities and infrastructure. The staff did not have much activities for checking up or consulting pregnant women. They just checked fetal-heart sound and blood pressure. They used to listen my fetal-heart sound through an old stethoscope which provided the sounds not clearly,” reminded Chuc. “During my pregnancy, I visited the health centre for two or three times”.

However, everything changed when she got the second child. The health centre now was located nearer to her house, at the centre of the commune. With ChildFund’s support, it became a spacious building with 8 functional rooms and water and sanitation facilities located in an separate area of 2500 meter square since 2011. There was a child friendly designed room for children to check up their health and wait during the vaccination injection sessions. The health centre was equipped with reproductive health equipment such as fetal Doppler, laying table and medicine cupboard.

Lam delivering a communication session to pregnant women in her commune

Lam has worked in the health centre since 1993. To her, the health care services of the centre has improved significantly thanks to ChildFund’s support. “Not only supporting in infrastructure and equipment, ChildFund organized many trainings for the health staff about professional knowledge and skills about child and mother health care. Thanks to that, we have learnt many new things to apply in our work,” shared Lam.

“Now we often make plans and conduct communication and consultancy sessions regularly for pregnant women,” added Thuy, the Head of the health centre. “Through the trainings, I also learnt about communication skills and improved my self confidence in working with people”.

Consultancy service at the health centre provides valuable support to women and children

In 2012, the health centre was recognized to meet the national health service standards. The scale of supplying services of the centre improved much. 100% of pregnant women in the commune often visit the health centre regularly during their period to check up their health.

Every month, Chuc came to visit the health centre for her health checking up. She was supplied with iron tablet, testing urine, monitored the pregnancy periods and consulted about nutrition by the health staff. Especially, she was provided a logbook to follow up health status of her and her child since she got pregnancy until her child get six years old. She was also provided with materials about child and pregnant mother’s health care.

“I feel very happy when coming to the health centre. The improvement in the health care services helps me increase my trust,” shared Chuc. “ I believe my children and other children in the commune would have better lives and health conditions thanks to the improvement of the health service quality.”