Sustainably improving child healthcare

This project covered the final year of a three-year nurse training program at the Ola During Children’s hospital (ODCH), the first year of which was funded by the Addax and Oryx Foundation. The project sustainably improved the quality of care for sick newborns and children at ODCH, contributing to the reduction of neonatal and child mortality and morbidity. The Welbodi Partnership established and coached an in-house ‘Core Training Team’ (CTT) of 10 senior nurses, who developed and delivered of paediatric nursing modules at ODCH –the country's only tertiary children’s hospital. Throughout the project Welbodi’s International Peadiatric Nurse Trainers provided weekly one-on-one coaching to CTT members, offering mentorship and in-depth training on clinical education, covering topics such as on how to conduct clinical research, develop training modules and presentations and plan and deliver training. Overall, 577hours of training and 1030 hours of mentorship were delivered since July 2021. Moreover, a comprehensive 4-day nursing induction-training programme was established, with a Continuing Professionals Development (CPD) handbook; induction handbook and other clinical training prompt cards were developed and produced. Improving the paediatric-specific knowledge and skills of nurses will improve the quality of care received by children, in turn reducing the high number of preventable child deaths. This will create an impact within Freetown, but also at a national level, as ODCH serves as the primary site for paediatric nursing student placements in the country.

The Welbodi Partnership is a UK-registered charity based in Freetown and founded in 2008. Its mission is to build the capacity of the health system in Sierra Leone in order to reduce the number of women and children who are sick, suffer, or die unnecessarily.

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