R4AUK –MMUST POCUS Training school in Western Kenya

Rainbow for Africa UK has been awarded by THET a grant to develop and run a SCHOOL to train clinicians (doctors, nurses, midwives and clinical officers) in Point Of Care UltraSound (POCUS) in Western Kenya.

The newly trained clinicians will make an impact in:
Maternal and antenatal care
Medical and Surgical Diagnosis in difficult to reach/limited resource settings

THET funded R4AUK POCUS in Western Kenya Feb 2024 - Jan 2025

  1. Delivery models, materials and trainers. Local sustainability (Quarters 1-4)
  2. Networking/stakeholders involvement in UK and Kenya for long term sustainability(Quarters 1-4)
  3. Workshops delivery (Quarters 3 and 4)

Long Term Sustainability

R4AUK is actively seeking partners, both from private and public sector in the UK and in Kenya to support a 5 years plan.

Each scholarship costs £400 and we aim to train 80 POCUS clinicians per year. This fee will allow the acquisition of portable ultrasound machines which will be strategically donated at the end of training to health facilities/services in need.

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Free Maternal Ultrasound Project

The death of babies and mothers during or shortly after delivery continues to be one of the leading causes of death in many Low and Middle Income Countries. The majority of these deaths are preventable through programs of screening focused on identifying high risk pregnancies; so that mothers’ risks are managed actively and they are directed towards the appropriate health facilities before the delivery time. Kenya continues to report significantly high numbers of perinatal deaths. Ultrasound screening in pregnancy, a fundamental screening tool which WHO recommends at least once in pregnancy, is not happening routinely, particularly in rural Kenya. The reasons are that the service is not available (mothers travel for long distances to get the service) or accessible (mothers have to pay as it is not included in the free maternal care package offered by the local National Health system).

In Kakamega county, Western Kenya, 1,916 neonatal deaths have been recorded in 2022 of which at least 1 in 3 was during delivery.

Rainbow For Africa UK has recently started partnering with the School of Medicine of
Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST), Kakamega; among the objective of the partnership is an improvement in the quality of health service delivery for mothers and babies in the whole county, implementing an outreach portable ultrasound service to be offered for free to pregnant women and a program of training to be delivered in the rural communities.

Rainbow For Africa UK has been successfully implementing a similar program in the nearby county of Busia for the past 6 years thanks to the generous support of the Cecil Pilkington Charitable Trust, the Rimmer Charity and Pilkington General Charity.