Care and surgery
Training and skills transfer
Building and equipping hospitals
Prevention and screening
Emergencies and humanitarian crises
Maternal health
Ivory Coast
Axes of intervention
Care and surgery- Training and skills transfer
- Maternal health
Start date: 2018
In Ivory Coast, La Chaîne de l'Espoir has one priority: to improve access to healthcare for mothers and children. We support the development of an adapted, high-quality, accessible and innovative healthcare offer that benefits not only the Ivorian population, but also that of West African countries.
Background
A healthcare system that needs to be strengthened for the most vulnerable populations
200 Ivorian children
die every day from diseases that could be prevented or cured.
1 in 3 Ivorian children
lives more than an hour’s walk from the first health center.
Nearly 4,500 Ivorian mothers
die every year in childbirth.
Source: Unicef, WHO (2022 figures)
For several years now, the Ivorian healthcare system has been improving, thanks to investments in infrastructure and the creation of universal health coverage.
However, while Ivory Coast has to cope with a high incidence of communicable diseases (malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, etc.) and non-transmissible diseases (diabetes, heart disease, etc.), access to healthcare can still be complicated for the most vulnerable populations and for specific types of care. In this context, the health of mothers and children is particularly vulnerable. That’s why La Chaîne de l’Espoir has made it its mission to contribute to the creation of a reference health center – the Hôpital Mère-Enfant Dominique Ouattara in Bingervillle – and to support and strengthen the capacities of healthcare professionals.
Our humanitarian aid action in Ivory Coast
Mother and child health: a reference healthcare center
Spearheaded by the Children of Africa Foundation (FCOA), in close collaboration with La Chaîne de l’Espoir, the Bingervillle Mother and Child Hospital (MCH) opened its doors in 2018. The aim of this private, non-profit establishment with a public service mission is to protect and care for mothers and their children, including the most vulnerable. This is achieved through a comprehensive prevention and care offering (health education, emergencies, pregnancy, childbirth and post-partum care, medical and surgical gynecology, etc.).
Located just a few kilometers from the capital Abidjan, the center boasts extensive human and technical resources (labor, delivery and C-section rooms, neonatal unit with resuscitation equipment and incubators, intensive care unit, state-of-the-art imaging and medical analysis equipment…). Every year, the care provided is improved, and more than 1,000 deliveries are carried out each year. A new project for pregnant women has been developed, offering more personalized pregnancy care. In addition, team skills have been enhanced in antenatal ultrasound and newborn care.
Domestic accidents involving caustic soda: a concrete response to this scourge
In Ivory Coast, La Chaîne de l’Espoir provides specific expertise to prevent and treat esophageal burns caused by caustic soda and other corrosive products. Unfortunately, burns resulting from domestic accidents are common in Ivory Coast and West Africa. The risk is all the greater in modest households, where these substances used for dyeing clothes, hairdressing, making artisanal soap, etc. can end up near kitchen utensils and be inadvertently ingested by the youngest children.
It is in this context that we are organizing, with the MCH and the Ivory Coast Red Cross, actions to prevent domestic accidents, as well as surgical missions for children who have accidentally swallowed this highly corrosive product.
Between 2021 and 2023, this project implemented in Ivory Coast and Mali, with the financial support of Agence Française de Développement (AFD), enabled the treatment of around 100 patients, as well as awareness and prevention actions in the communities concerned in Ivory Coast and Mali. The project is due to continue in 2024 in Ivory Coast and Benin, and for patients in West Africa.
Building tomorrow’s healthcare offering
We thus contribute to defining the medical project and strategic orientations (equipment plan, structuring of the organizational chart, recruitment, etc.) of the MCH.
We are also helping to identify priorities for the future, such as hospital hygiene, pain management, interventional radiology, laparoscopic visceral surgery (in partnership with AP-HP), infectiology and ophthalmic surgery, cardio-pediatric surgery, pediatric oncology… The aim is to develop a range of healthcare services at the HME that is still not widely available in Ivory Coast.
With this in mind, in 2023 we are rolling out a training program in ophthalmic surgery – with a focus on cataract surgery using ultrasound. To this end, several missions have been carried out by Dr Vincent Pierre-Kahn from the Hôpital Foch in Paris, and the MCH has acquired specific equipment to make this type of operation possible in the country.
Pediatric cardiac surgery: an emerging specialty
At a time when congenital cardiac pathologies are one of the main causes of infant mortality, we carried out a technical and medical audit at the MCH to study the development of a pediatric cardiac surgery service. As a result, in April 2023, the Ivorian Ministry of Health gave the go-ahead for its launch in collaboration with the Abidjan Heart Institute. Children will now be able to undergo open-heart surgery in Bingerville, and will no longer need to be transferred out of the country for treatment.
“Children suffering from heart disease are condemned to die… even though we know how to treat them! By reinforcing care with this complex surgical specialty, we are also helping to raise the skills of our teams.”
Elsa Negre (Head of the Infrastructure & Biomedical Department at La Chaîne de l’Espoir) and Dr Gérard Babatasi (Head of the Cardiac Surgery-Circulatory Assistance Department at Caen University Hospital), who led this mission for La Chaîne de l’Espoir.
Our partners
They support our humanitarian aid
in Ivory Coast
No linked partners found.
Photos: La Chaîne de l’Espoir, Mathieu Gateiller / Studio Wane
