On the Front Lines: How HOPE Equips Health Workers to Save Lives
World Health Day shines a light on the vital role nurses and midwives play around the world. But as health workers fight to stem the COVID-19 pandemic, it also highlights the urgency to equip them with the tools and training they need.
Angella is a trusted nurse and mentor to new mothers at Bo District Hospital in Sierra Leone. Her job is to help premature and low-weight babies survive the first, and most dangerous, days of life.
Not long ago, nurses in this hospital thought low-weight babies were doomed. Their country, having suffered a long history of conflict, had one of the worst infant mortality rates on earth. With only a few incubators, there was no way to keep babies safe and warm — nothing they could do for the thousands of newborns born premature every year.
That was before Project HOPE established a learning lab where Angella and her team of nurses learned to teach mothers how to position, feed, and care for their tiny babies — some weighing in at only 1.3 pounds. Now, premature babies still have a chance to survive and grow healthy, from fragile to strong.
Training health care workers like Angella is at the heart of HOPE’s mission. Around the world, we work within existing health systems to empower nurses and midwives with the training and tools they need to save lives.
Last year we trained and equipped nearly 23,000 health care workers to fight the health battles in the communities where they work, all of whom are now united in the global fight against COVID-19.
But our work is far from over. The world is short more than 7.2 million health workers, and half of all countries face a shortage in the health workforce. In light of COVID-19, the need today is greater than ever — and the consequences are loud and clear.
The Training to Treat a Health Crisis
Nurse Nayra works near the Colombia-Venezuela border, in an overcrowded hospital that never sleeps.
Every day, she meets dozens of Venezuelan women with high-risk pregnancies. They are all in urgent need of health services they couldn’t find in their home country. Nayra’s job is to provide prenatal and postnatal care, but it’s also to keep hope alive for her patients, who have been suffering through the Venezuela crisis
“The work is tough,” Nayra says, “but we do as best we can, with passion.”
HOPE empowers health care workers like Nayra with the training they need to respond in times of disaster and crisis. This includes training in priority areas like emergency obstetric care and rehabilitation, and specialized training on the ground as crises unfold in real time.
That training pays off when every second counts — whether in a delivery room on the front lines of the Venezuela crisis, or after disaster strikes in places like the Bahamas, Indonesia, and Mozambique.
It also pays off in the long-term, in ways that could never be anticipated. In 2001, Project HOPE formed one of the premier nurse training schools in China, the Wuhan University HOPE School of Nursing, unknowingly laying the foundation for the COVID-19 response at the outbreak’s very epicenter. For two decades, the school has provided training in hands-on care, including disaster preparedness, for tens of thousands of nurses from across the country — a generation of leaders who became the first to stand on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Support to Save Mothers and Babies
A midwife since 2011, Fitrotful has delivered thousands of babies throughout her career.
A few years ago, she took a training offered by Project HOPE on neonatal asphyxia care. Her skills were put to the test shortly after, when a mother rushed into the clinic in the midst of delivering a baby with asphyxia. She knew exactly what to do to save the baby’s life.
“I was feeling panic about the baby’s state,” she says, “but thanks to the training I felt calm and confident in taking care of the case.”
Thousands of women and infants die from preventable causes every day — most of them in developing countries. In rural Indonesia, formal health services are often too expensive or far away, putting women and children at especially high risk. That’s why HOPE has trained midwives like Fitrotful with the knowledge they need to stand in the gap.
Midwives and nurses are an essential part of our global mission to give all mothers and babies a fair chance at a healthy future — in Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, and around the globe. Last year we trained over 6,600 health care workers in essential maternal and neonatal care. In Indonesia, this training has saved the lives of more than 85,000 mothers and 11,000 newborns over the past five years.
The Foundation to Fight Disease
Adunga Kifle served as a soldier in the Ethiopian army for 13 years, trained for combat, ready for battle. But nothing could prepare him for the fight of his life as his health deteriorated to the brink of death, almost leaving his children fatherless.
That’s when Elene, a HOPE health worker, stepped in.
She tested and diagnosed Adunga with HIV and TB, and referred him to a nearby health facility for care and treatment. Adunga knew his wife, Alemnesh, was HIV-positive, but thought he was immune because of his blood type.
If Elene hadn’t intervened, Adunga would not have survived. “If I hadn’t met Elene, I wouldn’t be here today,” he says. “She’s my lifesaver. She’s my everything.”
The threat of infectious and noncommunicable diseases is real and rapidly rising. Infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis threaten the lives and well-being of millions of people around the world, while NCDs such as heart disease, respiratory diseases, and diabetes are the leading cause of death on earth. Most of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries where health care workers are less equipped to treat patients.
Building the capacity of health care workers is critical to winning the fight against these diseases, at national levels as well as in local communities. HOPE trains health care workers in HIV and TB screening, treatment, and care in places like Ethiopia, Namibia, and Malawi. We also train health care workers to prevent, detect, manage, and treat NCDs — in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and beyond. Last year we reached 11,000 health care workers with the knowledge and skills needed to reduce the burden of chronic diseases.
We’re also giving health care workers around the world the foundation they need to treat COVID-19 — training that could mean the difference between life or death for hundreds of thousands who fall ill with the novel coronavirus.
Many of the world’s biggest health crises are interlinked. But at the heart of these problems is a bigger crisis: an extreme shortage of health workers worldwide. This falls to the heart of our mission.
How you can help
Whether it’s by responding in times of disaster and crises, working in the delivery room, or fighting chronic and infectious disease, Project HOPE places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives.
As we face historic levels of global need, your support empowers health workers like Nayra in Colombia, Fitrotful in Indonesia, Elene in Ethiopia, and the countless others who’ve shown us the combined power of training and compassion. Here’s how you can help.
Make a lifesaving gift to support our work now and for the future at projecthope.org/donate.
Are you a health-care or other professional who would like to learn more about volunteering abroad with Project HOPE? Learn more about our volunteer program and join our volunteer roster.
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