ETHIOPIA

Cabrini St Mary’s Catholic Primary Hospital in Dubbo, Ethiopia

Cabrini Outreach continue to support St Mary’s Catholic Primary Hospital in Dubbo, Ethiopia, to progress their goal of improving maternal and child health outcomes.

St Mary’s is a 100-bed Catholic hospital providing medical, surgical, paediatric and maternity services to the local community of around 100,000 people. Cabrini Outreach continues to contribute funds to the hospital’s maternal and child health program, which has fortunately witnessed the continuation of pregnant mothers attending for assisted births, their antenatal education program boosting engagement, malnutrition being addressed; and clients receiving surgical care when needed.

During the fiscal year, at St Mary’s Primary Hospital care for 6847 patients in the admissions and outpatient departments, which includes pre and postnatal care, administering immunisations, treatment of hypertension and treatment of diabetes. This included 126 women, of childbearing ages, who were screened for cervical cancer and 708 children under the age of five who were admitted and treated for conditions including malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, acute febrile and malnutrition.

6847 PATIENTS CARED FOR AT ST MARY’S PRIMARY HOSPITAL

552 WOMEN ATTENDED THEIR FIRST ANTENATAL CLINIC

481 WOMEN RECEIVED ANTI-TETANUS TOXOID VACCINATION

47 BABIES BORN THROUGH CAESAREAN SECTION

146 NEWLY BORN BABIES RECEIVED BDG AND FIRST POLIO VACCINE

38 BABIES ADMITTED TO THE NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

Paediatric Service

In the St Mary’s catchment, family and societal practices, coupled with a lack of health knowledge, often contribute to delayed access to obstetric health services, especially in emergency health.

All women presenting for antenatal and maternity care continued to receive postnatal care. The postnatal care sessions give an opportunity to refer women and their babies to their local health centre for immunisation.

One of the major challenges, for St Mary’s is the high number of teen pregnancies. The impact of COVID-19 has been felt directly by young female teenagers, having prolonged school closures, with teenage girls becoming pregnant. The majority gave birth to infants who had a birth weight of less than 2500g.

St Mary’s continues to provide care and treatment to children, most of whom are under five years of age, with the most common presentations related to upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhoea and severe malnutrition. Children also presented for screening for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

With the civil war unrelenting around Ethiopia, the year has persisted to be a difficult and tumultuous period for the staff and patients of St Mary’s; however, the hospital continues to provide complete, comprehensive quality care to maternal child health patients. The hospital was able to open their much-anticipated neonatal department, introduce their expanded immunisation program, and broaden the cancer screening program to all women of childbearing age, improving women and child health status of their local community.