Village Clinic Saving Under-five Lives in Mzimba

No one can deny the joy that is bestowed upon a family when they receive a newborn baby. Innately, parents want to provide the best for their children. In dreaming about a child’s future, a parent considers things such as education, health and other social services having to be in place in order to make that child’s life adequate. But for some families, ones based in remote areas particularly, where access and provision of these services depends on the government, sometimes such dreams can vanish instantly. Ethel Chimowa, aged 32 from Funnwayo Village in Traditional Authority (TA) Mthwalo in Mzimba district almost had her aspirations cut short when it came to her last-born daughter, Esnati. She shares her ordeal.

Married to Willard Chimowa, 45, of the same village, Ethel and her husband are tobacco estate tenants who rely on working for tobacco estate owners in a very remote part of the district. The earnings they get from their toil are so small that they rely heavily on government subsidised services. They are a relatively large family of seven, which can be challenging considering their finances woes times. But it is the recent scenario when their last-born Esnati fell ill that the family almost resigned to fate as they were close to not getting the essential services they required.

“Looking back on that fateful day, 7^th May 2014, I fail to express myself. I do not know whether I should cry or smile.” Ethel begins her story.

It was on that day that 4-year-old Esnati fell seriously ill. Luckily for her, the closest health facility is within walkable distance to their home so the mother rushed her to the clinic with hope that she would get the attention and help she urgently required.

To her surprise, she could not access any services at the facility as the health personnel at the facility were attending to other equally pressing issues. 

“I was told that the doctors were busy attending to other priorities and that there was no medicine at the clinic.”

Meanwhile, Esnati’s condition did not get any better. She continued developing fever and vomited profusely – leading to even her groaning becoming faint. At this point, all hope of saving her child was growing thin that all she could do was cry out to the heavens.     

Luckily enough for her, a guardian angel was sent in her neighbor who had accompanied her to the facility. She suggested to the mother that they take the sick child to a nearby village clinic. Prior to that moment, Ethel had never heard of a village clinic.

“It is at that point in time that my neighbor told me about a village clinic on the other side of our village. And that proved to be a life-saving moment for my daughter.” She narrates with a smile.

They quickly rushed Esnati to Kamwe village clinic where they were welcome by Gilbert Mchizi, a Health Surveillance Assistant (HSA) who runs the clinic. After quickly describing the problem to Gilbert, he conducted some body checks on the daughter and prescribed the required medicine.  The child was then given first dose of various medicines, which led to her condition gradually changing from worse to better.

Today the family is all smiles. Esinati recovered from her sickness. She is now able to stand, play and do other home chores better. In addition to that, Esinati is going to pre-school.

The story of Ethel and her daughter, Esnati, is one of the many successes that village clinics are registering in Mzimba district. Being one of the largest districts in Malawi, Mzimba covers an area of over 10,400 square kilometres with a population of over 800,000. Although the district has over fifty health facilities, which provide health services to the populace in the district, the vast geographical size of the district hampers accessibility to health services in the available facilities. People have to travel long distances and during odd hours to access the same. In most instances, medicines are not there at all.

Realising the need to have such services within the reach of communities, Save the Children, through the RAcE project, funded by CIDA through the WHO Global Malaria Programme introduced the village clinics which are being operated by Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs), (a community health worker cadre) operating in various communities across the district. Kamwe village clinic, on average, sees around seventy under-five cases, the most common ones being malaria and red eye.

Written by Esau Mwale, RaCE Project Officer