10 Women Friendly Public Health Centers in Egypt

With your support we were able to deliver successfully, from 5th to the 8th of February,2023, a four day training to 20 nurses in 5 different public healthcare facilities in Egypt. 

The four days training covered topics related to women's health services and shedding light on the challenges and requirements needed to deliver these services. With constant coordination with the Ministry of Health and Population, the training outline and content were designed and approved by the ministry and delivered to 20 nurses nominated by the ministry and working in the primary healthcare units selected to join the Women Friendly Services project.

To design the training program, we engaged the team of experts to review the existing training materials and develop customized training content and activities that were relevant and engaging to the participants. The team of experts took into consideration the participants' background, level of education, and their prior knowledge of reproductive health services.

The program lasted for four days and covered three main topics: Sexual and reproductive health, Family planning, and Gender-based violence. The final day of the program included a policy brief session, during which participants were introduced to the concept of policy papers and learned how to write them.

Fifteen activities were implemented with the trainees during the training. Throughout the training, participants were provided with new knowledge on various topics including concepts and types of gender-based violence, the latest updates on sexual and reproductive health, and family planning. This new knowledge was shared through the use of the latest articles and the illustration of the updated indicators listed in the DHS survey.

The training and activities conducted have been successfully achieved the desired outcomes, as evidenced by the creation of mind maps and lists of services from the perspective of the trainees such as:

• List of Reproductive Health Services and Determinants That Affect Them.
• Required Data for Providing Pre-Marital Counseling
• Misconceptions About Reproductive Health and How to Address Them.
• Designing Awareness Sessions for Targeted Audiences on Reproductive Health Services.
• Advantages and Challenges of the 100 Million Health Initiative.
• List of Topics for Women's Health Education for Each Targeted Group.
• Forms of Violence Against Women in Egypt.
• Forms of Violence Against Women in Healthcare Facilities.

We thank you enormously for your previous support, and with your constant support we will be able to expand this training in different governorates all over Egypt, providing women with the services and the support they need (psychological and medical).

The Women Friendly Services project is successfully expanding into five new public healthcare units in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population.

With this expansion, we designed an updated support programme to be implemented in healthcare units in order to strengthen service providers' capacities. Beside covering the basic needs in the programme, we added in this support programme a specific component on "how to communicate news to patients properly", to enhance the capacities of the doctors and nurses in promoting suitable sexual reproductive healthcare (SRH) and family planning services adequate for women's needs. 

Mental health has become a priority, especially with the frustrating economic and societal conditions globally; doctors and nurses struggle with how to deliver bad news to the patient. In our program, we tailored a specific section on this topic and how to handle the patient right at the moment, including dealing with an angry patient, how to perform in different situations, explaining procedures to the patients and their families, and what the common mistakes are and how to prevent them.

This comes from a strong belief and extensive research we’ve done on mental health in Egypt, which made us more aware of the importance of such components in SRH services being covered in the training delivered to doctors, nurses, and community leaders in the healthcare units we work with.

With your continuous support, we shall be able to expand into more healthcare units and produce more innovative solutions and products to help improve the services provided to women in Egypt.

Thank you for always making it possible for us to help women receive the services they are entitled to with the highest quality.

Coming soon: the inclusion of women’s clubs in the healthcare units, under the umbrella of the Women Friendly Services project.