Working at Ministry of Health

Time vanishes when it is full of action.  It has been ten days since my last blog, and almost half way into the assignment :(.  Instead of reciting the day to day activities, I will summarize in a few blogs.  First is the work.

Work stated on Sunday, August 9th, with IBM and DOT kickoff meeting.  Monday morning, we had client kickoff meeting at Ministry of Labor and Social Affair.  The minister, his excellency Mr. Abdulfeta Abdullahi, attended the meeting.

The client of my sub-team is Ministry of Health, hosted by PR department.  Our mission is help the ministry to use web and mobile technology to improve internal and external communication.  Each of us, Eduardo, Jonathan and me, are assigned to a desk.  Here are  pictures of  MoH building, my desk, and plastic flowers mark the electric outlet on the floor.

 

In the first week, we interviewed the director of the PR, Mr. Ahmed, Director of ITdepartemnt, Mrs.Yemiserach Kafelign, director of HIV prevention and control, Mr. Berhanu Feyisa, and people from health extension education, resources mobilization, the electronics communication team, attended the press conference on Ebola preparation hosted by Minister of health.  We got a rough picture of health care system.

Ethiopia is a country of close to 90 million people, 80% in agriculture.  The population density of Addis Ababa is higher than Beijing.  One doctor per 50,000 people, most of the doctors are in the urban area.  I read somewhere, the annual medical expenditure per capita is $1.25 a few years ago.  In past 10 years, Ethiopia government rolled out a massive grass root Heath extension program that mobilize community effort, mostly women, to deliver basic health care, such maternal and child health, family planning, communicable disease care and prevention, nutrition and sanitation improvement and education to "every" citizen.  The hierarch of the health care structure is like this. It is a very impressive system, every one loves the idea.  Although there are issues in execution and some of the official numbers are questionable, the positive impact on rural communities is undeniable.



Friday Aug. 15, we visited a model health post located 20 km from Addis city center in Oromia region. It serves 750 families, 3532 people. No electricity.  It has an emergency delivery bed, equipped with 3 plastic bucket of antiseptic solution including water.  One kerosene refrigerator is used to store vaccines.  The health center is 15 km away, no electricity neither,  6 delivery beds, 13 health care workers, no doctors.
Health post:

 

Health extension worker: The  blue folders on the shelf are family folders.  The communication to health center is personal cell phone.

 

 

All we can do is try our best to make recommendations on  communication improvement, but the implementation depends on the infrastructure availability.  This is only 20km from capital,  the remote rural area is your imagination.