Expanding Healthcare Access
Mahenzo has opened 6 rural clinics since 2012, working alongside community leaders and Kenya's Ministry of Health to expand access to daily health care in villages in Malindi and Magarini Sub-Counties of Kilifi County, Kenya.
Our process to healthcare expansion:
Mobilize Community Support: Identify idle and undeveloped health facilities in rural areas that lack access to healthcare and empower the local health committee to involve the community and its elected leaders to participate in refurbishing and preparing the facility as needed so that, together with the Kenya Ministry of Health, the dispensary becomes an operational development that the community utilizes and recognizes as beneficial.
Hire Health-Care Providers: Temporarily provide a clinical officer or nurse for the dispensary until the Ministry of Health has absorbed the provider's salary into its budget.
Supply Drugs: If not yet available from the county government, supply drugs for the initial setup of the dispensary.
Dispensary Review: Occasionally visit the health provider and/or the health committee in the early months of operation, surveying the progress and encouraging their work and cooperation.
Repeat: When the Department of Health absorbs the clinic into its system and sends a provider of its own, we begin the process over again, identifying another facility and community to work with.
Once a village is able to access and receive consistent healthcare, the community's health improves and preventative care becomes the emphasis.
Mobilize Community Support: Identify idle and undeveloped health facilities in rural areas that lack access to healthcare and empower the local health committee to involve the community and its elected leaders to participate in refurbishing and preparing the facility as needed so that, together with the Kenya Ministry of Health, the dispensary becomes an operational development that the community utilizes and recognizes as beneficial.
Hire Health-Care Providers: Temporarily provide a clinical officer or nurse for the dispensary until the Ministry of Health has absorbed the provider's salary into its budget.
Supply Drugs: If not yet available from the county government, supply drugs for the initial setup of the dispensary.
Dispensary Review: Occasionally visit the health provider and/or the health committee in the early months of operation, surveying the progress and encouraging their work and cooperation.
Repeat: When the Department of Health absorbs the clinic into its system and sends a provider of its own, we begin the process over again, identifying another facility and community to work with.
Once a village is able to access and receive consistent healthcare, the community's health improves and preventative care becomes the emphasis.
