Maternity in Chad

The St. Bakhita dispensary and the Dr. Massimo Lepri maternity ward in Bissi Mafou will have a doctor. In order to help him do his job better they need a spectrometer to augment the available laboratory tests.

In order to be able to diagnose and treat more diseases, they requested permission to have a doctor once or twice a week. The health delegation of the Pala district has expressed a favorable opinion, indicating the conditions to be filled.

Among these is the possibility of carrying out certain blood tests on site, for which they need to equip our laboratory with an additional device, the electrical installation for it to work and the necessary reagents.

The Bissi Mafou dispensary was founded in 1969, has been part of the BELACD-Caritas network since 1985 and is officially recognized by the Chadian state. In 2017, a specific maternity section and a laboratory for analysis were added.

In 2022, the staff of the dispensary treated over 2,000 patients, followed 540 pregnancies, assisted 175 births and vaccinated over 450 children.

Two nurses, a midwife and a service assistant work at the dispensary. The center operates at full capacity from 7.30 to 14.00, for the rest of the day an on-call service is ensured for which a nurse is always present, guaranteeing assistance 24h/24h.

The main activities of the center are prenatal consultation and childbirth, vaccination of women and children, laboratory tests, diagnostic consultation and follow-up of cases of child malnutrition. The main diseases treated are malaria, typhoid fever, intestinal parasites, tuberculosis and hepatitis. Also there are the incidents of accidents, including transit accidents and snakebites.

One of the problems of recent years is the proliferation of illegal dispensaries in the villages, without trained personnel. Unfortunately the state does not carry out any checks and people turn to these centers because they are closer and cheaper, not realizing that in doing so they run serious risks and make the situation worse, often arriving at the center when it is already too late.