Health Pooled Fund enabling Covid 19 preparedness activities in South Sudan

Health Pooled Fund (HPF) is working with is partners to ensure preparedness for Covid 19 in South Sudan. Through HealthLink, its implementing partner in Juba, HPF has started setting up health facilities for Coronavirus screening, isolation and referral to Ministry of Health South Sudan by calling toll free number 6666.

HPF is facilitating training of health facility staff to be able to screen, identify and isolate suspected cases of the coronavirus.

Apart from the training, HPF is upgrading water and sanitation infrastructure in 19 health facilities.

In ensuring a standardised and coordinated approach, HPF is working with other partners like Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in setting up the health facilities in readiness for any suspected cases of the coronavirus.

James Yugi and Dr. George Lutwama are leading the HPF teams that are working with Healthlink to ensure that facilities are set up properly. The trainings for BHWs is also been done concurrently.

“We are working with partners such as MSF so as to have a standardised set-up in all facilities. We have donations from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) which our team has distributed to the facilities which we will be setting up,” said James Yugi.

The first health facility to be set up was Hai Jebel Primary Health Care facility in the Customs area in Juba.

Boma health workers training

HPF facilitated a Boma health workers (BHWs) training to demystify coronavirus, pass key messaging within the community and to refer suspected confirmed cases to the Ministry of Health.

The training also covered prevention measures that the BHWs and health facility staff should put in place to ensure that the coronavirus is not spread within the community and health facility.

Adrien Mahama, the Water and Sanitation Coordinator for MSF- Holland South Sudan Mission facilitated some practical sessions with the BHWs to improve their hygiene practices. This included practical sessions to reinforce what had been discussed in the theoretical sessions.

“We have to work together to ensure a coordinated approach to the coronavirus. The health workers are a key resource in the screening, identification and referral of cases to Ministry of Health. We are always willing to work with partners so that we can achieve more together” he said.

HPF and other partners have been on the forefront with developing information, education and communication materials in line with the standardised messaging in South Sudan. Furthermore, HPF has developed a draft curriculum to help in the training of the BHWs. Additionally, HPF is working with its implementing partners to ensure that water and sanitation infrastructure in in place in identified health facilities to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.