In December 2022, Muso launched direct service delivery in Madinani, Côte d’Ivoire, addressing critical delays in health care. Around the same time, a young woman named Machiami Coulibaly found herself newly pregnant and sought answers for her stomach pains.
Machiami is a 23-year old woman living with her husband, Yaya, his parents and their two year old daughter in the small village of Gbangue in northern Côte d’Ivoire. During her second pregnancy, before Muso’s arrival in Madinani, Machiami experienced many difficulties and ultimately had a miscarriage.
Machiami with her husband and daughter.
Several months later, Machiami and her husband found out that they were expecting once more. However, shortly into the pregnancy, she started to experience similar symptoms to her second pregnancy: severe stomach pains and persistent headaches. During his routine home visits, the Muso-supported Community Health Worker (CHW), Bakary Fofana, covering her zone noticed her distress, to the extent that she could not even stand up straight. After an initial assessment in her home, Bakary concluded Machiami would need further examination and decided to refer her to the Seguelon Health Center for further evaluation.
Upon arrival at the hospital, the nurse conducted a blood test and a physical exam. As Machiami continued to complain of pain in her navel area, the nurse recommended that an ultrasound and additional tests to ensure the baby was healthy and that the pregnancy was progressing normally - as she started to suspect this was not the case. Machiami was promptly evacuated by the health center’s ambulance to the Odienne Hospital, accompanied by her husband.
After the exams were completed, the doctors thankfully concluded that the pregnancy was viable, but Machiami would require close monitoring and some medication to alleviate the pain, which was prescribed to her. In addition to the daily home visits, the CHW gave her a prenatal consultations booklet which listed her consultation schedule until the end of the pregnancy.
Six months later, Machiami delivered a healthy baby girl while receiving consistent postnatal support and home visits from Fofana.
Machiami faced significant delays in receiving care during her second pregnancy, including geographical distance and the cost of care, tragically resulting in the loss of her baby.
For Machiami, and countless women facing such difficulties around the globe, arriving at a health center even a day or an hour too late can mean the difference between life and death.
Through Muso’s work, care is provided without any point-of-care fees, bringing life-saving diagnostics and therapeutics into the home through trained and professionalized Community Health Workers, and evacuating patients who require more complex care to redesigned rapid-access primary care clinics to receive care from skilled nurses, physicians, and midwives.
We remain committed to bridging the gap caused by delay, ensuring that even those patients who might otherwise slip through the cracks, regardless of various obstacles, receive the health care they rightfully deserve.
Comments