By Wilfred Golden

As one way of increasing healthcare service delivery, WaterAid Malawi is implementing a four year Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project in communities around Ntchisi district.

Speaking at Chinkhande healthcare post during a media tour, Laston Zungu, programmes officer at WaterAid Malawi, said this is the on going programmes which started way back and others have already benefited but this time around the project is targeting three healthcare facilities with 10 villages as direct beneficiaries.

“Indeed I would like to confirm that this healthcare facility is facing alot of challenges, so I will dwell much on problems which are WASH related. As WaterAid we came with a technical assessment and from our findings we indeed noted that there are no toilets at this facility, they do not have a water supply system as they rely the one from the community meaning to say they have no water system special for the facility,” he said.

He also stressed on the issue of waste management facilities as the facility only has incenerator and placenta pit, and no arsh pit and refuse pit as all is being required for good healthcare service delivery and that as WaterAid Malawi they are committed to address these challenges through this project.

“Through the project we are going to ensure the provision of new water system specifically targeting the healthcare facility, as to weather the system will be 5,000 or 10,000 to 15,000 this will depend on the catchment population,” Zungu highlighted.

On his part, facility in charge at Chinkhande healthcare post, Felix Zakaliah said the situation at the facility is not good at all as the working place is not comfortable to the extent that they are not able to provide other services as health workers are also limited.

“Our catchment area is about 3,000 but with people coming from other areas the figures go up to 12,000 so you can see that our catchment population is very hi comparing with resources that we have here.

“The coming in of WaterAid Malawi with this project will really help us as I said that on the part of water supply we rely on the community water system so as part of maternity ward section we always need water when we come to the use of toilet we need water so this will have a huge and long lasting impact on us,” Zakaliah said.

Joseph Mataya, Chinkhande healthcare post chairman, said the coming in of this project will see many things changing at the facility as in past they have been in problems with water supply system and expectant women had to walk long distances to access healthycare services so the coming in of this project will address those problems and we hope alot will be achieved.

The project is targeting three healthcare facilitieswhich are Chinkhande, Chandawe as well as Sambakunsi with support from Wimbledon Foundation and it is to the tune of 1.2 million pounds.