Cabrini Missionaries, St Mary's Catholic Private Hospital, Ethiopia

Cabrini Outreach Annual Report 2020-21 International development

During the 2020-21 financial year, Cabrini Outreach continued its partnership with St Mary’s Catholic Primary Hospital in Dubbo, Ethiopia, to progress our goal of supporting St Mary’s to improve maternal and child health outcomes. This is a 100bed Catholic hospital in Dubbo provides 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. In the St Mary’s catchment, family and societal practices coupled with a lack of health knowledge often contributes to delayed access to obstetric health services — especially in emergency health institutions. However, over the last financial year, St Mary’s reported a total of 3209 pregnant mothers accessing maternal health service and 3033 babies born in the facility (313 through caesarean section) without any child or mother deaths. All women presenting for antenatal and birth care continued to receive postnatal care, including checking bleeding post-delivery, and providing support and education on the importance of breast milk, signs of ill-health in newborns, and good hygiene practices. The postnatal care sessions give an opportunity to refer women and their babies to their local health centre for immunisation.

St Mary’s also continues to provide care and treatment to children, most of whom are under 5 years of age. The most common reasons for children to present related to conditions such as upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhoea and severe malnutrition. Children also presented for screening for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. A total of 12,632 patients accessed health care services to address various ailments that they presented in this this period, and a total of 142 children were admitted and accessed health care services to address malnutrition. These clients access comprehensive services through a successful referral to Cabrini Ministries Ethiopia. Furthermore, 281 adults accessed surgical care services,

whilst a total of 28 children under the age of five years were reached with surgical care services.

With the civil war taking place around Ethiopia, the past year has been a difficult and tumultuous period for the staff and patients of St Mary’s, but they continue to move forward with a determination and drive to deliver the best primary health care services they can. We aimed to provide as much support as practicable from afar during this period, and as the new leadership team from early 2020 settled into their roles.

Right: School children, Ethiopia