Simone Kolié is a midwife - one of not too many professionals in the forest region of Guinea in West Africa. She works at the Bowé health centre, which with the support of DIFÄM was expanded to include a maternity clinic in order to improve the care of pregnant women and newborns. Further training and better instruments and equipment have since made the staff's work easier. ‘I have learnt how to use ultrasound in prenatal care. Now I can take much better care of the women. For example, we can see if a woman is carrying twins and can also recognise other risk factors early on.’ Simone Kolié is responsible for looking after the women before, during and after childbirth. ‘I am so happy that we now have the equipment to provide newborns with fast and good care if they need support after birth. This saves the lives of many babies. We always have our resuscitation equipment at hand,’ she says.
Employees who motivate
Highly motivated, the 37-year-old wants to further improve the quality of care in Bowé. She now knows what is important: ‘We need to look at our processes. We have already learnt a lot and can now document processes better, which significantly improves cooperation within the team. I would never have thought that uniform standards would actually improve the women's situation so much. The work is also more enjoyable now because everyone knows exactly what needs to be done. However, we are always faced with financial difficulties. Very poor people are treated free of charge, but the hospital doesn't have the money to buy medicines or pay staff. Health insurance could perhaps help here.’
Simone Kolié has seen that improvements can be made and she wants more of them: training for all staff and standardised guidelines for treatment in all areas of the hospital. But also equipment such as an ambulance so that women in labour don't have to be transported on a motorbike, or a heated bed for pre-term babies. ‘We have already achieved a lot. Our regional health authority has now officially recognised us for the treatment of people with HIV. Now we want to create our monthly reports digitally and send them to the ministry so that they know how important our work is in the region and perhaps cover some of the costs. We need modern software and computers for this’.
Positive Changes
Simone Kolié is one of many employees who are promoting change processes in her hospital. DIFÄM wants to continue to support her and others across Africa in achieving positive changes in healthcare. Church hospitals can become shining examples of better health in the One World.
