Nursery Project (Goma, DRC)

In 2008, our partners at Heal Africa (HA) asked for our help to create a dedicated newborn nursery in response to a growing population of pregnant women delivering in the hospital.  Through trips in 2008 and 2009, one of IPOP's earliest volunteers and now our Director of Programs, critical care nurse Jennifer Parson , helped design, build, and training the nurses for this neonatal uint.   At the end of her time, an old room with broken down medical beds used for storage has been transformed into a 10 bed Neonatal Unit complete with bed warmers, monitors, and individual patient charting. Importantly, HA committed to provide dedicated local Congolese nursing staff to new unit.   In 2010 IPOP sent another team, comprised of a pediatrician, Chris Carpenter and nurse Mary Le.  They built on Jennifer Parson's work to reinforce good nursing and pediatric care protocols, expanding education to include the peditric residents and medical students of the hospital.

Since its inauguration, Heal Africa's neonatal unit has cared for several hundred babies with a variety of diagnoses ranging from low birth weight to prematurity to sepsis to HIV infection. Because of its success, the unit has quickly become a regional referral center for neonatal care and our partners at HA asked us to expand our training to other areas of the hospital.  In the summer of 2011,  Nurse Mary Le returned to Goma, joined soon therafter by Josh Bress, a peditrician who will be working in Goma for 12 months.  In their first 6 months, they have developed hand hygiene protocols for the entire hospital as well as specific care protocols for the pediatric ward.  Thanks to their work, HA will soon be a formally registered UNICEF Nutrition center, and thereby gain access to specialized (free) re-feeding formulations.  Josh and Mary have also continued continuous clinical care and mentorship on the pediatric ward and nursery.  Click here to read a recent update letter from Dr. Bress.