Benga Health Centre promotes handwashing

Amid the WASH challenges that most health care centres face in Malawi, the few centres that have access to reliable water supply have intensified handwashing with soap to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

At Benga Health Centre in Nkhotakota district, preventing the spread of Covid-19 is one of the topics during health talk conducted every morning which is attended by healthcare workers and clients.

In a telephone interview, the centre’s in-charge Ella Gondwe has outlined the importance of hygiene in healthcare facilities.

“While we are doing our part cleaning the surfaces and the equipment we use, we also expect the people who seek help here to practise good hygiene. All this is possible because of the adequate WASH facilities we have,” she said.

One of the patients Rachel Tobias, 45, said the information they get from the health centre is shared with other people in the community.

“There is a lot of good information that we get from the health centre. We know how Covid-19 is transmitted and how it can be prevented. We are now used to washing hands with soap here at the centre. I wish if the government were to distribute soap to people who cannot afford,” Tobias says.

Through Organised Network of Services for Everyone’s (ONSE) Health Project, the District Health Office (DHO) briefed and distributed handouts to healthcare workers on Covid-19 prevention measures. The DHO also provides daily updates on Covid-19. Apart from the health talk and posters, information in the communities is also shared through meetings organized by local leaders who were also briefed on measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

As member of Water and Environmental Sanitation Network, WaterAid has advocated for facilitating access to soap for the poor through private sector partnerships and social cash transfers, and removal of VAT on hygiene and infection prevention supplies such as soap, mops, chlorine and handwashing buckets.

The health centre received handwashing facilities and soap from WaterAid which was distributed to healthcare centres in the district to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The health centre serves 23 villages and it has a catchment area of 20,520. According to Gondwe, on average she attends to 400 outpatients per day highlighting the need to observe hygienic practices at the health centre.

Under UKAid funded Deliver Life Project, WaterAid Malawi constructed and rehabilitated WASH facilities which included pit latrines, sewer system, sinks, toilets, placenta pit, borehole, incinerator and ash pit while a solar-powered water pump was installed to supply water to the health centre and all staff houses.