Our projects
Health care in Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso, the right to health is a fundamental right. In recent years, the government has made great efforts to improve the health system in Burkina Faso. Despite this commitment by the government, many structural problems in the country still undermine the health sector. Prominent among these are:
- Low density of hospitals and health facilities. Distances to the nearest hospitals are very long, especially in rural areas.
- Poor infrastructure, especially lack of roads and means of transport.
- Poor equipment of health facilities with staff, medicines and treatment and operation facilities. Often there is a lack of almost everything.
These problems are also reflected in the health care situation in the region around Ouarégou.
Healthcare at the project implementation site – Ouarégou
Ouarégou is a commune with about 18,000 inhabitants, located in the department of Garango, in the province of Boulgou in the eastern rural central region of Burkina Faso. About 150 kilometres away from Ouarégou is Ouagadougou, the capital of the country. There is only one road leading from Ouagadougou through Ouarégou to Tenkodogo. The nearest hospital is in Tenkodogo, about 40 kilometres from Ouarégou. With good road conditions the journey by car takes more than an hour on the only unpaved road; in the rainy season the road is impassable. However, almost no one has a car. The predominant means of transport are motorbikes and bicycles, totally unsuitable for transporting the sick and women in labour. Thus, for a large part of the population, the nearest hospital is not accessible in an emergency. Since there is also a lack of the necessary information about the risks of childbirth, there is usually not even an attempt to get to the hospital.
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to obtain valid figures on the situation of pregnant women, births and babies in Burkina Faso. Pregnant women are largely not registered and prenatal medical checkups are not taken up due to the long distances and financial costs. In 2018, infant mortality in the Ouarégou region is still very high, according to WHO data. Out of 1023 registered pregnancies in Ouarégou, only around 830 babies are born alive.
Objective of our projects
We, the association Hand in Hand Burkina Faso e.V., have the following main objective:
To improve the coverage of health care for pregnancy and childbirth in the municipality of Ouarégou and the surrounding villages.
The sub-goals are as follows:
- Provision of counselling services on contraception, family planning and birth control options
- Better education of the population about birth risks and prevention options and increase in the attendance rate at preventive examinations
- Promoting of mutual assistance for health care in the municipality of Ouarégou
- Involvement of the population of Ouarégou in the construction work of the maternity ward to reduce costs and increase appreciation among the population
- Provision of financially affordable and partly free health services
- Reducing maternal and infant mortality
Field report – Birth in Ouarégou
My experience with births in Ouarégou My name is Kadietou Sare. I was born in a small village called Beguedo in Burkina Faso, where girls are encouraged to marry and bear children at an early age. During that time, I witnessed women suffer a lot during their pregnancy, especially during childbirth. Most women give birth at home because there is no hospital or the hospital is too far away. Moreover, the villagers believe that it makes no difference whether you give birth in the hospital or at...
