In Tanzania, Daiichi Sankyo deployed mobile healthcare field clinic services for five years from fiscal 2011 in an area with healthcare access issues and high infant and maternal mortality rates (Kisarawe District), to help improve the healthcare access. However, the same issues still persisted in other areas of Tanzania after developing the service. In light of this, we have been operating the mobile healthcare field clinic services since February 2017 in the Kilombero District, which we chose as a new area of the project.
Our representatives visited the district to monitor the progress of the project, which is carried out in cooperation with Plan International, an international NGO.

Overview of the Project

Since the commencement of the project, Daiichi Sankyo has been providing the mobile healthcare field clinic services in accordance with the implementation plan at 48 outreach points in 18 of the 35 wards of the Kilombero District, where access to healthcare was very limited. We establish a Health Day^※ every three months at these outreach points. The Health Day event sees the number of its participants grow every time it takes place.

※Health Day: a day when both the mobile healthcare field clinic services and awareness-raising activities for residents take place

Observing a Health Day

This Health Day we observed began with an awareness-raising activity for local residents conducted by a clinical officer (on such topics as sex and reproduction, HIV/AIDS, encouraging a prenatal checkup, promoting a delivery at a medical institution, child care and child-rearing), followed by the mobile healthcare field clinic services (including preventive vaccinations, body weight measurements and maternal checkups).

Awareness-raising activity carried out by a clinical officer

Distributing nutritional foodstuffs (including soybeans, peanuts, corn and sugar)

Interviews with Local Residents

• It took me three hours to get here; two hours by bicycle and one hour on foot. Before these services began, I would go to another clinic, which took me nearly five hours. I make sure to visit it every month so my children can grow up healthy and strong. I also enjoy sharing information with mothers in the same conditions as me.
• I came here from a nearby village with my wife for prenatal consultation. She could not finish school, so she is ignorant about many things. I accompany her to the prenatal consultation every month because I want to always be there for her as her husband. I find it reassuring to be able to always receive a doctor’s checkup every month.

Building a Health Center

Inspired by the maternal consultations and awareness-raising activities for the local residents carried out as part of this project, the local residents themselves have begun constructing a health center. Moreover, this has had a ripple effect on other areas.
The area we visited had no health centers with permanently staffed doctors or nurses nearby; it could only make an inquiry to a private hospital 60 kilometers away. Completion of the health center will expectedly help to improve the vaccination rate and to significantly drop the maternal and infant mortality rates.

Health center construction site as part of activities by local residents

Summary

This year marks the third year of the project in the Kilombero District of Tanzania. The areas covered by the project have seen project plan-based activities (mobile healthcare clinic services, training sessions to healthcare workers, preventive vaccinations, and prenatal checkups) bear fruit in the forms of local residents’ enhanced knowledge, the improved vaccination rate, and the increased prenatal checkup rate. We felt that the mobile healthcare field clinic services has encouraged the local residents to understand the concept of healthcare and consequently they are more aware of health.

This project focuses on achieving the Goal 3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” of the SDGs set out by the United Nations. The project is adopted as the Access Accelerated program.

Images courtesy of Plan International