Improving the knowledge and skills of health workers to provide quality family planning services.

Jessica, an enrolled midwife at Nakivale health center iii is one of the participants in the training Shared Action Africa conducted among the 20 frontline health workers (midwives) from 7 health centers to provide family planning services and cervical cancer screening to or refugee women in Nakivale Refugee Settlement. The theory and practical training equipped the health workers with knowledge and skills to provide quality integrated family planning and long-acting family planning services to maximize the availability and accessibility of FP services at all levels of family planning service delivery.at Nakivale Health Centre III, working in the maternity ward. She is one of the frontline line workers trained in the provision of family planning methods and cervical cancer training.

“I can now administer cervical cancer screening and can properly diagnose it and support women who have it. I also gained skills in the administration of both short-term and long-term family planning methods, but I am particularly for the new knowledge on the insertion and removal of IUDs, use of female condoms, and cervical cancer screening. I had never seen a female condom before the training but now I know how to use it. I can offer a wide range of family planning services. Since the training, the number of family planning users has increased from 50 to 70 per week. Much as we still have to deal with a lot of misconceptions, cultural beliefs, and wrong information in the community concerning the use of family planning, we the health workers are more empowered to support the women and girls that come to the health center to receive health

The training also improved my customer care skills as I serve the women and girls who come to the facility. Some of them can’t properly express themselves in the common language but I can understand what they are saying. This training enabled me to understand the human rights-based approaches to providing quality care.

Nevertheless, the demand exceeds the supply; due to a large number of refugees in the settlement, we have limited resources in terms of manpower and supplies. This causes unwanted pregnancies leaving many women and girls in vulnerable situations. Passing on this knowledge and skills to Village health teams will go a long way to increase the number of FP users and cervical cancer screening since people will be more aware and services will be brought nearer to them.”