A new training manual for Pesinet weighing agents’s weekly check-up has been designed. It explains through images the key steps of the health check-up and data collection process. Discover the images drawn by Tanguy !

On June 26, an information meeting was organized in front of the District Chief’s  house for inhabitants of Bamako Coura. Families of the district had been invited via the town crier and the local radio.

The objective of the meeting was to explain in detail the Pesinet service to the families, describe how it was working in practice, the advantages and benefits of subscribing to Pesinet in terms of decrease in health spending, health follow-up, access to examination and treatment.

After the speeches of the counsellers to the District Chief, Pesinet’s Managing Director explained the orgin of the program, its objectives and key data about health situation of under 5 in Mali.

Mrs Kanté, volunteering as animator with Pesinet, gave a inspiring speech and strongly stressed the added-value of Pesinet for the families of Bamako Coura, which has been chosen as the pilot district for the initiative.

Cheicknè Coulibaly, program coordinator, explained then the service in depth and answered families’questions.

Families already enrolled in the program also had an opportunity to give a testimony and to answer other mothers’ questions.

At the end of the meeting, populations expressed their hope to see the program develop beyond the pilot district, to benefit more populations very soon.

Some pictures:

On January 9th 2010, representatives of various organizations working on  healthcare and development in Mali, executives from local healthcare structures, elected members, representatives of the local district and families living in the area gathered in the healthcare center’s courtyard for the official launch of Pesinet’s activities in the district III of Bamako. The ceremony was chaired by the Malian Health Minister, Mr. Oumar Ibrahima Touré.

The Mayor responsible for Healthcare in District III, Mrs Djire Mariam Diallo, opened the ceremony with a welcome address during which she expressed her satisfaction that the District III had been selected as pilot zone for the development of an innovative project using Information and Communication Technologies to improve healthcare.

The representative of the Pesinet Association in Mali, Antoine de Clerck, then took the floor to present the founding principles of the Pesinet service, its objectives and its functionning. Two films in French and Bambara, were shown to explain Pesinet service to the audience. Ms. Coulibaly testified about her expérience as a Pesinet subscriber. She has been subscribing to the service for 1 year to follow-up on the health status of her child Aboubacar.

Antoine de Clerck warmly thanked all project stakeholders and in particular the partners of the association in France – Antropia, the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation, the BNP Paribas Foundation and Medicament Export – and in Mali – the Ministry of Health and its e-health agency, the Regional Health Department, the healthcare center in District III, the Orange Mali Foundation, the BNP Paribas subsidiary in mali, BICIM, and the Malian communicaiton agency DFA Communication.

The doctor responsible for managing the Health Center in District III, Mrs. N’Diaye Hawa Thiam, and the representative of the Pesinet association in Mali then officially signed the agreement, which formalizes the commitments of the association and the health center in the joint implementation of Pesinet’s health monitoring program for children.

Mrs. Diawara Aminata Kamian, Managing Director of the Orange Mali Foundation, expressed her pride to support the Pesinet Association. She reminded that the foundation had been a founding partner of the project in Mali. “Indeed, the project meets the objective of the Orange Mali Foundation, which is to implement sustainable actions that will bring lasting structural change for a maximum number of people.

Mr. Daouda Fall, Associate Director of DFA Communication then took the floor to explain the why his company had chosen to support the Pesinet Association. The communications agency offered to organized the ceremony and created for free communications materials for the event.

The Minister of Health closed the ceremony with a supportive speech. He stressed that Pesinet was “an appropriate response to child healthcare problems, since it allowed to” raise families’ awareness of the concept of medical follow-up. ” The Minister said that Pesinet is a” major innovation “. “As a paid service very affordable, it helps to educate families about prevention”, he added. Read the speech of the Malian Health Minister.

The ceremony was successful in publicizing the program Pesinet among people and public institutions gathered on the occasion. Many Pesinet subscribers were present and played as ambassadors and the service among other families in the neighborhood. The event was broadcasted on the National News, and also relayed in the local press. To read some articles published, see the press review for January 2010.

Watch the report broadcasted on national TV (in French only).

Pesinet is currently deployed in a pilot phase in the district of Bamako Coura, in the capital city of Mali.

• 390 children are subscribing to the service,
• 2 full-time agents and 1 full-time coordinator have been recruited,
• A local doctor works 10 hours a week for Pesinet,
• 90% of collection rate,
• 30% of children benefiting from the service are called in for examination by the doctor every month following early-detection of disease or for routine examinations.

The pilot enabled to validate the operating model and economic approach as well as the health impact of the service.

An survey carried out by a Phd student under the supervision of the National Agency for e-health and Medical Informatics in Mali shows that:

• 96% of the families are satisfied with the service
• 99% want to recommend the service to their relatives or friends
• 97% find it “very cheap”
• 78% of the mothers subscribing have low education levels (none, or primary school)
• 90% have either unstable or rather unstable revenues
• 95% think the main advantage of the service is “Good health follow-up and affordable cost”

Watch our video clip to see how the service is already working in the field and delivering on its social promises. Click here…