Village Health Partnership

In the rural areas of Ethiopia, nurse midwives face the crisis in maternal health alone.  Most pregnant women receive no antenatal care. Most women deliver at home, and many die in childbirth. Many more infants die. There are no doctors, and the nearest hospital is hours away. Nurse midwives, with minimal education, no supervision or mentorship and little in the way of equipment and supplies, deliver babies in rural health facilities. If the delivery is complicated, babies often die and sometime mothers die. Supporting Nurse Midwives Through Mentorship In 2021, we tested nurse midwives working in health facilities in the West Omo Zone, one… Read More »Alone on the Front Lines

The Bachuma District Hospital is located in the town of Bachuma in the West Omo Zone (WOZ) of southwestern Ethiopia. The hospital provides labor and delivery services to pregnant women who live in surrounding communities. Recently, the hospital began providing emergency obstetric care, i.e. caesarian sections, to pregnant women in distress. In fact, the hospital is the only medical facility in the WOZ, home to 700,000 people, that is able to provide women in the Zone with this critical lifesaving service. Improvements Already Made When we first visited the hospital in 2016, it was just an empty concrete shell of… Read More »Addressing a Critical Need: Solar Power for The Bachuma District Hospital

While news from Ethiopia is dominated by the conflict in Tigray, there is also horrific ongoing violence in the western Ethiopian state of Oromia, where Village Health Partnership conducts the Screen, Transport, and Treat (STT) Program. The Ethiopian federal government and the Oromo Liberation Army continue to clash over who should hold power in the region, leaving a trail of violence that, as so often happens in armed conflict, has had a devastating impact on women and girls. With the increased violence, access to healthcare is limited at best.  As a result, more women are giving birth at home, more… Read More »Challenges and Successes Of The Screen, Transport, and Treat Program

Susan Barnett met Mecca on a trip to Ethiopia with Village Health Partnership in 2016. Mecca touched her heart and exposed the deep poverty and lack of access to healthcare that women in rural Ethiopia face. Read Susan’s article, Preventable but Prevalent: An Injury Affecting Millions of Mothers, about Mecca and women like her, who suffer preventable injuries associated with childbirth.

We are thrilled to announce that Village Health Partnership will be a May 2023 Featured Grantee of Together Women Rise, a nonprofit focused on global gender equality. They will be supporting our Skill Check, Training, and Mentorship program, as well as our Basic Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (BEMONC) Training program. These education programs focus on giving nurse midwives on the front lines of healthcare in the rural areas support and a chance to improve their existing clinical skills. “Together Women Rise is a is a powerful community of women and allies dedicated to global gender equality. We have hundreds… Read More »VHP is a Together Women Rise Grant Recipient

Village Health Partnership was recently featured at the Rotary District 5450 WASH Symposium in Denver on October 8th, 2022. The Symposium focused on creating IMPACT in the global water, sanitation, and hygiene sector. IMPACT: Innovation, Multi-Sectoral, Partnerships, Assessments, Community, and Testing The impact of VHP’s diverse partnerships in Ethiopia and the United States was the topic of a panel discussion. We were joined by People 2 People, a nonprofit that supports orphans around the world, in discussing key elements to successful partnerships. View the PowerPoint presentation, as well as a summary of presentation highlights, below. Presentation highlights VHP builds deep… Read More »Rotary WASH Symposium

Nurse-midwives are the frontline of obstetric and neonatal care in rural Ethiopia. When trained well, nurse-midwives are able to provide pre- and post-natal care and skilled assistance at the time of delivery, ensuring a healthy outcome for mothers and babies. When no nurse-midwives are present, or those present do not possess the necessary skills, women and neonates suffer and face a greater risk of dying before, during, and after childbirth. In short, well-trained nurse-midwives save lives.  On our last trip to Ethiopia, a woman lost her baby at the Maji District Hospital because the nurse-midwives did not have the skills… Read More »Supporting Nurse-Midwives