Hamad Bin Khalifa Hospital in Mauritania boosts health and social services in 2020

The hospital is operated by QRCS under an MoU with EAA

THE Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital in outilimit, Mauritania, has issued its annual report on the medical activities and services offered during 2020 to improve the health conditions of the local communities of outilimit and neighbouring regions.

Operated and managed by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) under an MoU with Education Above All (EAA), the hospital relies on its own resources and infrastructure, along with a workforce of 1 specialist physicians, nurses, assistants, social workers and administrative staff.

Some activities were affected by the unexpected impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the report.

The overall budget of the hospital for 2020 amounted to $1,275,000. It has four medical divisions outpatient, inpatient, technical and emergency. There are six outpatient clinics of internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, dermatology, general surgery, orthopaedics-and dental medicine.

From January 1 until December 1, 2020, the -bed emergency department received 15,595 patients, including 12, 9 multiple emergencies, 2,9 1 Ob-Gyn emergencies and 275 road traffic injuries. Performance indicators show that the hospital managed to achieve a main goal of reducing referrals to major hospitals in Nouakchott no more than 67 referrals. With its six rooms, the outpatient department offers GP services during weekdays, while other specialities are available on a basis of three clinics per week. Over the past year, the department served 41,459 patients, including 16,22 children, ,9 2 male adults, and 16, 04 female adults. They are divided as follows GP (22,497), general surgery (764), paediatrics (2,905), Ob-Gyn (1, 27), dental (1,56 ), orthopaedics (1,7 4), pregnancy care (2,15 ), dermatology (4, 16), internal medicine (2,1 5) and ophthalmology (1,960).

Currently, the hospital has a capacity of 62 beds in four recovery departments (internal, paediatrics, Ob-Gyn, and general surgery). The reported year saw 4,759 inpatients with a total of 10,969 stay days. The bed occupancy rate was 57 percent, with an average of 2. stay days per patient.

As the hospital pays great attention to maternal and child health, the Ob-Gyn department supervised 1,5 1 births, including 26 C-sections, with a surgical intervention percentage of 17 percent, which is much less than national figures, re ecting the improved performance of the department.

The department of biotechnology, which consists of three fully equipped operating rooms, lab and medical imaging unit, conducted 61 surgeries in the specialities of ObGyn, orthopaedics and general surgery. Also, there were made

7, 09 lab tests (average 100 per day) and 6,251 medical images (average 20 per day).

The hospital continued to provide training for the students of public health schools, such as the schools of public health in Rosso and Kiffa. Over the past 12 months, a new batch of 5 trainees was received. To ensure sustainability of professional capacitybuilding, the hospital took part in many training courses with other organizations and organised internship and field training programmes for nurses.

In relation to social care, the Social Affairs Department assisted 07 poor patients to get access to vital health services. Under a partnership agreement with the National Reproductive Health Program, health care was given to 1,456 pregnant women across outilimit. Since the beginning of 2019, the hospital has been engaged under the national health initiative to combat viral in ammations, by developing an automatic mechanism to vaccinate all newborns prior to discharge. Over six months, the new mechanism had a coverage rate of 100 percent.

There were public awareness interventions to promote preventive health practices in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. To protect the health workers, informative courses were held on the basic rules of prevention and what to do when dealing with a positive case. Also, tips and educational posters were put everywhere on the hospital’s premises.

The Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital was established in 2007 under the patronage of HE Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, through the Qatari-Mauritanian Social Development Foundation, which is supervised by EAA, a global institution aimed at creating new opportunities and hopes for the needy and underserved children, youths, and women, particularly in the areas affected by war, armed con ict, or natural disasters.

It has a strategic goal of providing high-quality health care at affordable prices for the poor, to avoid the need to travel for treatment in Nouakchott or abroad.