At the recently concluded global health systems symposium, KTNET Africa partners participated actively in presenting their research using posters. More than six posters were presented from research funded by the Netherlands Organization for scientific research.
These included:Two posters from Ghana (CoHEiSION project) both of which were presented by the lovely Christine Fenenga. In one poster Dr Fenenga revealed that communities, health providers and health insurers have different explanatory models for health implying that information and communication targeted towards these groups all needs to be carefully tailored towards their views of health. Dr Fenenga also presented findings highlighting the value of engaging clients in monitoring health care and insurance services in Ghana.
From Senegal Dr Winny Koster’s poster was about the barriers to the utilizationof antenatal diagnostic tests with findings that although most community members consider ANC important, many women are deterred due to fear of costly prescriptions.
Midwives act as gatekeepers, limiting access to both testing and laboratory results-informed treatment. She emphasized the need to develop and avail clear national guidelines on ANC test package as well as the reduction of ANC testing costs.
From Ghana (Accelerate) represented by Dr Augustine Koduah the intricacies of agenda setting regarding the inclusion of maternal services in the capitation benefit package in Ghana were succinctly explained. She gave a detailed discourse on the way this issue came onto the policy agenda and ultimately dropped off. Interesting fodder for all policy analysts out there.
From the Democratic Republic of Congo Monsieur Eric Mafuta, lauded the importance of empowering communities and creating procedures or avenues where women and their communities can give health providers feedback in order to make them more accountable for the services they provide. Dr Mafuta however noted that women prefer to express their concerns face to face with providers rather than using collective avenues
Finally from KTNET Africa secretariat, David Walugembe discussed the capacity of the media to engage and support research uptake based on findings from media practitioners in five WOTRO funded research coalitions. Media are willing to support knowledge uptake but need to be facilitated to engage with researchers and other evidence resources as well as interpret findings.
The showing was good. On every day of the symposium our partners gave the Symposium poster winners a run for their money.