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Pesinet releases the final report of an important impact assessment work. This report highlights some results that are very encouraging in the prospect of a broader development of the program.

This work was conducted under the supervision of an external evaluator, Marie-Pierre Gagnon, a Canadian professor and international expert in evaluation of e-health projects and community healthcare. The evaluation’s scope was Pesinet’s pilot site, in the district of Bamako Coura, on the basis of data collected between August 2010 and February 2011.

The Pesinet team wanted an independent and strong evaluation of its child health follow-up program to be led early, for the following reasons: 1. First and foremost, in order to verify and measure the actual impact of Pesinet’s approach and actions before expanding activities ; 2. To have strong arguments and figures at our disposal to convince health centers of the interest of launching the Pesinet service and negotiate partnership conditions ; 3. To be able to provide objective results to existing or potential operational and financial partners. Meeting Marie-Pierre Gagnon enabled to make this project a reality.

The results of this work are positive with regard to Pesinet’s objectives. The program has a visible impact on people’s behaviour and significantly increases resort to healthcare structures. Indeed, children subscribing to Pesinet see a doctor 3 times more than the average of the area. In terms of health impacts, the follow-up service seems efficient to detect accurately diseases and facilitate their ealry treatment. Lastly, interviews conducted with subscribing families, health center’ teams and national institutions have shown the adequacy of the model to the local context and its buy-in by the different local stakeholders.

Some areas of improvement to increase Pesinet’s efficiency were also identified. In particular, the evaluator recommended to reinforce prevention and counselling activities, to strive to further increase recourse to healthcare in case of diseases, and to work on the improvement of patient welcoming and drugs availability at the partnering health center. Most of these recommendations have been implemented since.

Lessons learnt from this work significantly enrich our approach and have already had concrete applications. The results have been used to define the financial conditions of the partnership with healthcare centers, and to convince key actors and institutions to support the broader implementation of Pesinet.  This evaluation also enabled us to identify the key indicators we need to monitor and the reporting tools we need to put into place in order to measure our impact in a continuous manner.

The Pesinet team is very glad to have led this evaluation and wants to thank Marie-Pierre Gagnon and her team for their precious help and their huge work. These results encourage us to keep going and maintain our efforts to develop Pesinet in new areas.

A summary of the report is available here (French only – English to come soon) >>

The full report is available here (French only) >>

Interview with Mama Touré, Pesinet health agent in the district of Dravela since December 2011.

• How did you hear about Pesinet?

I heard about them through the committee of women involved in the activities of the community healthcare center in my district. I am a mother of 5 children and I really wanted to contribute to develop the service designed by Pesinet which is something really new for children’s health.

• So you decided to engage with Pesinet’s teams?

Yes. At first, Pesinet’s CEO asked me if I could carry out surveys as part of the evaluation process. After fullfilling this mission, I became a proximity health agent with Pesinet in my district.

• What is your role exactly?

Twice or three times a month, I visit families subscribing to the Pesinet service to control children’s health status. If they exhibit symptoms of illnesses, I alert the family so that they can bring their child to the healthcare center where he can undergo medical examination and access treatment.

• What do you like most in your job?

What I like most is the contact with children – I love children ! – and I am very glad that Pesinet contributes to their good health and helps parents who didn’t know what to do before.

• Did Pesinet change a lot of things in your district?

Yes, it did. Before, even if there were healthcare structures, and even if there were home visits, parents were reluctant to bring their sick child to the medical center: they feared not to be able to cover the cost of treatment. Now, with Pesinet, it is better organized : home visits are more frequent, follow-up is more serious, but also access to medical examination is free and  treatment is less expensive. The service is really worth the money and parents don’t hesitate over bringing their child to the doctor when sick. This changes everything.

• How is the expansion of Pesinet’s activities going?
  

I think that expanding the service to new districts allows to correct some of the mistakes that were done previously on the pilot site and to improve our actions. Now, collection of monthly fees is much more serious and it is done at the beginning of the month. Parents know the service better and are more involved. There is also improvement in terms of medication availability at the health facility.

• How are your relationships with the medical teams of the healthcare facility and with the parents ?

We get along very well with the teams of the healthcare center and the doctor. The doctor is very nice and very capable. With the parents, it depends. Sometimes, some of them don’t welcome us very well but it gets better over time. They need some time to understand that we are doing this for the children.

• What do you wish for Pesinet in the future?

Sincerely, I wish I can work with Pesinet in the long run and never stop until all the families of my district are enrolled in the program, for the good health of their children.

Pesinet’s General Assembly was held on March 30th 2012 in Paris office.

This year, we organized an open assembly, gathering members of the non-profit organisation as well as supporters of our actions. On that occasion, 26 people got together to discuss the 2011 activity report.

After a briefing on the current situation in Mali, three volunteers of the NGO gave a speech about their involvement in Pesinet. Brigitte Olivier-Roussel, Pierre Aubry and Caroline Begaud talked about their voluntary missions, on the ground or in France, in their respective areas of expertise or interest : medical expertise, video shooting, communication. These testimonies highlighted the multiple ways of getting engaged with Pesinet.

The team then presented the activity report and detailed the key areas of work in 2011 : strengthening of the service, first expansion of the service, impact assessment, professionalization of the organization. The treasurer presented the financial report. The presentation was followed by an open discussion with the participants to gain better insight into some of  subjects mentioned.

The Assembly unanimously adopted the financial and activity reports. Members also elected a new member to the Board: Robert Dulery.

The meeting ended with a cocktail so that participants could continue to discuss freely.

Read the activity report (in French only)>>

You’ve always wished to put on your jogging pants and run for a cause in which you believe ?
With Pesinet and the Heroes Race, it is possible!

The Heroes Race is a sport challenge – you run or walk 6 km – but more than this, it is a solidarity challenge: each participant runs in favour of a non-profit for which he has raised funds among his / her network, that will be help the non-profit organisation finance its programs. This is a new form of fundraising that is original and friendly. Based on the web and social networks, it allows anybody to mobilize their relatives for a cause that is close to their heart.

Last year, 7 courageous joggers put on their running shoes for Pesinet. Score ? A great deal of pride and more than 3 000€ collected for the NGO!

So, join Pesinet’s Dream Team and participate in a solidarity race on Sunday June 17th!

The race will start in Parc de Saint Cloud (subway: Pont de Sèvres, line 9 or Boulogne Pont de Saint-Cloud, line 10).

How to support Pesinet ?

• You like pure air and challenges ? Run for us !

-  Register on www.coursedesheros.fr, choose to support Pesinet and create your own fundraising page (online registration costs are 12€ and will be reimbursed by Pesinet). We have created a  team to gather all Pesinet runners, join us! http://coursedesherosparis2012.alvarum.net/pesineteam

- Raise at least 300€ in donation among your own networks through the web and the social networks.

- Walk or run 6km on D-Day.

• You feel more confortable in the terraces ?  Become a sponsor !

You can support a Pesinet runner by going to his / her page http://coursedesherosparis2012.alvarum.net/collecte/liste and donating online.

Only participants raising at least 300€ will be allowed to run. If the objective is not reached, the fund raised will however be given to Pesinet.

Discover some images of last year’s Heroes Race: http://pesinet.pourunmondequichange.com/presentation/

See you on the starting blocks !

In December, training sessions were organized for management committees and technical teams of the partnering healthcare centers. Those sessions were about tools and procedures of the Pesinet service as well as patient service and orientation. They lasted two days and were animated by Pesinet’s Coordinator in District 3 of Bamako.  49 people took part in the training sessions. Discover the interviews of the trainer and some of the participants.

• Can you please introduce yourself ?
  

Mrs. DIALLO : Hello, I am a midwife and I work as the receptionist at the Dravela health center.

Dr. KAMISSOKO : I am the General Practitioner of the Dravela healthcare center.

Mr. SANOGO : I am Vice-President of the Community Health Association of Ouolofobougou.

Cheick Mohamed PANO : I am the Coordinator of Pesinet and I was the facilitator of the training sessions in the new partnering health centers.

• Was the training useful to you?

KAMISSOKO : It was useful. It allowed me to better understand the role of the proximity health agents, of the doctors and of the supervisor in the program as well as to know which tools were necessary for the service.

PANO : This training was essential for the program success in the two new healthcare centers and for all actors to gain an understanding of the service’s way of functionning. For me, it was an opportunity to acquire further experience in animating training modules and to test my abilities in that field.

• What did you learn about Pesinet?

DIALLO : I learnt that parents often bring their children too late to the healthcare center and that if the proximity health agents visit families frequently it will be different.

KAMISSOKO : It is a program for children health treatment. It enables to reduce child mortality and morbidity, as well as the cost of treatments. It improves child survival.

• What do you think this program will bring to the healthcare centers?

DIALLO : Pesinet will help healthcare centers mobilize people on children’s health.

KAMISSOKO : During their first 9 months of life, children are weighted during vaccination sessions at the center, but when they reach that age it is not the case anymore and Pesinet is thus very beneficial. With Pesinet, we will be able to provide pieces of advice on nutrition, diarrheal diseases, hygiene. Pesinet will increase the use of the healthcare center, its revenues and help develop patients loyalty to the center.

Pesinet is going to help lower hospital’s congestion. Families will first come to the primary healthcare center and then to the secondary level of care and finally to the hospital only if the illness can’t be treated elsewhere.

• What did you think of the training methodology?

 SANOGO : The facilitator was very competent. The slideshow was good. It was very much appreciated because the message was clear.

The facilitator gave enough time for everybody to expose his or her point of view. Answers to questions could come from any member of the group. It was very interactive.

PANO : I think that the training module that we had prepared was well adapted because we leveraged what we had learned on the pilot site of our program. When designing it, we took into account challenges that the healthcare centers face, results of assessments carried out on the pilot program and of group discussions recently organized with subscribers. The training module was very aligned with the needs for capacity building  that we identified on the ground, in our daily activities.

• Which part of the training did you like the most?

 SANOGO : I liked the work that we did in small groups on defining an action plan for improving patient reception and service at the center. My group had to identify areas of improvement in terms of communication towards populations in the district. We decided that we will organize meetings with the population, talks at the mosque, use the town crier and put information posters.

PANO : I very much liked the work that we did on welcoming patients as well. When gathering comments, we realized that nobody had ever received a training module on this and we were able to come up with ideas on what could be done to improve things, which behaviours shoud be avoided. There was a great participation from the group.

• Any areas of improvement for the next training sessions?

PANO : I had difficulties noting down all the discussions that took place during the training. Somebody had been chosen to draft a report of the session but he didn’t manage to do it properly. At the end of the training, it would have been good to have some time to go through the notes. But we didn’t have time to do that, the session had started later than expected as some participants had been delayed.

The “Pansons le Monde” forum aims at offering innovative alternatives and promoting common projects and new convergences between public, private and solidarity-based organizations to ensure access to quality healthcare to disadvantaged populations.

Organized by ACTED, Convergences 2015 and Cités Unies France, the first edition of the “Pansons le Monde” forum for better access to healthcare in developing countries, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa, gathered many actors in Paris on January 25^th. This 1^st edition was held in combination with a Decentralized Cooperation’s Day, devoted to the international action of French local autorities in the field of health in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The agenda included two conferences, “MDGs and structural strengthening of healthcare systems” and “Access to healthcare for poor and marginalized populations”, and two round-table on nutrition and on drug supply.

Anne-Roos Weil was one of the speakers of the “Access to healthcare for poor and marginalized populations” conference, along with Bénédicte Brusset, Project Leader at the French Agency for Development (AFD), Marc Schoene, former Health Director of the city of Saint Denis, Philippe Lévêque, Managing Director of Care France, Nicolas Guihard, Advocacy Officer at Médecins du Monde, Anne-Claire Hay, Consultant in micro-health insurance at Inter Aide, and Estelle Pasquier, in charge of prevention and health at Handicap International. Jean-Jacques Louarn, President and founder of Grotius International, ran the conference.

The topic discussed was the question of free healthcare policies, their positive and negative effects on healthcare systems, and the conditions needed for their implementation; as well as the solutions which enable to improve access to healthcare in countries where healthcare is not free. Anne Roos-Weil presented the initiative led by Pesinet in Mali and the way the Pesinet service combines proximity follow-up and health insurance to remove the financial and cultural barriers to healthcare access for poor people. She presented the results achieved.

This forum was one of the 1^st events to gather together NGOs, public local authorities and health professionals in order to share their respective experiences in the field of health in developing countries. It allowed them to tackle the issue of access to health and its challenges in a more pragmatic way.