Number of Monthly Deliveries in Lilanda Health Center Surges Following Introduction of the Clean Clinic Approach

In November 2017, nearly five months after the integration of the Clean Clinic Approach at Lilanda Health Center in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the number of women giving birth there quadrupled from an average of five births per month to reach 20-25 births per month. One reason behind this significant increase is the improvement in hygiene conditions.

As one client explained, “My name is Kaenga, I live in Lilanda and I am a mother of five; two of them are twins. I gave birth to my first three children in Isangi General Reference Hospital on the other side of the river. This time, my husband and I decided that I would give birth in Lilanda Health Center because the maternity ward is now very clean and there is water available inside the rooms. The environment in the center is also convenient and safe.” She added, “I and other women from our village have decided not to take the risk of crossing the river to give birth after the conditions here in Lilanda have finally improved and for that we thank MCSP.”

The services provided by the maternity ward of this health center not only benefit the women living in Lilanda, but also those coming from the surrounding villages; some of them are located as far as ten kilometers from the Lilanda Health Center.

Another woman from a different village who is a mother of four also shared her experience, saying, “My name is Ruth, I live Botshiangulu, a village located 9 km from here. I gave birth to my first son here and it was not a good experience because of the poor hygiene conditions”. She continues, “I gave birth to my other two children in the General Reference Hospital, on the other side of the river. It was when I came to attend the prenatal consultation here at the health center during my pregnancy that I saw how different the conditions are now – a clean facility, water available, clean toilets – so I decided to give birth here and I am very comfortable this time. Many of the women who gave birth here said that these improvements are the results of the MCSP project”.

Lilanda Health Center is one of the centers of the Isangi Health Zone which has a population of 7,807 inhabitants in nine villages. It is located 13 km from the general reference hospital on the opposite bank of the Congo River with a width of 4.5 km. The monthly average number of deliveries in the maternity ward before the integration of MCSP’s WASH approach was 8 to 10 deliveries a month. After the integration of the Clean Clinic Approach in 2017, both the quality of services and number of deliveries have increased dramatically.

Lilanda Health Center clients are grateful for the support of MCSP and are requesting an expansion for the project to reach other health centers in the health zone.

USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program supports high-impact health interventions with a focus on 25 high-priority countries with the ultimate goal of ending preventable child and maternal deaths within a generation. JSI leads the work in the areas of child health, immunization, and pediatric HIV. JSI staff also contribute to the program’s cross cutting functions of measurement, monitoring, evaluation and learning, community health, and health systems strengthening, with a focus on the strengthening of routine health information systems and supply chain management.