The Need. In the areas where World Vision works in the developing world, about half of the healthcare centers do not have a clean water source and 84% do not have functional hand-washing facilities. It’s unacceptable that many pregnant women carry their own water to a healthcare center before giving birth. It’s fair to say that a healthcare center without water, sanitation, and hygiene isn’t really a healthcare center. Improving the hygiene situation in healthcare centers will literally save hundreds of thousands of lives. In fact, the work to improve water and hygiene in healthcare centers is one of the most efficient ways we can save and improve lives of mothers and children.
The Approach. World Vision’s work in healthcare centers is a comprehensive effort. It includes providing clean water on premises, handwashing stations wherever patients are seen, toilets, and showers. We also train and equip healthcare personnel to prevent the spread of infections and to properly manage waste including infectious waste. We focus on making sure this work is sustainable by working with local communities and governments to ensure proper budgeting towards ongoing operation and maintenance needs of WASH systems.
Completion of Commitment. In June 2019, World Vision and our partners made an audacious three-year commitment to provide water, sanitation, and hygiene services in 800 rural health care facilities serving an estimated 7.2 million people. World Vision has now completed and exceeded this commitment a year earlier than anticipated. In a two-year period, we have installed a safe drinking water source in 910 healthcare centers and provided access to gender-separated sanitation facilities designed for people with limited mobility and appropriate for managing menstrual hygiene in 639 healthcare centers. A silver-lining of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the increased focus on handwashing facilities and because of this, World Vision was able to greatly exceed our targets by providing 3,026 health centers with handwashing facilities.
New Commitment. World Vision and our partners are committed to protect front-line healthcare workers and their patients and prevent the spread of deadly infectious diseases by providing clean water on premises and improved hygiene and sanitation in a cumulative 1200 health care facilities between 2019 and 2023. And we’re investing to make sure that our donor’s investment has the greatest possible impact. We’re partnering with the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina and the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia to determine the best ways to ensure sustainability of the interventions that we’re providing, as well as determine the most effective ways to reduce the spread of infections.
See the Work. We recently convened with a group of donor partners who have helped fund this work. This hour-long call covered a lot of ground and we’d encourage you to watch all of it, but if you’d like to jump to a particular section here’s a description of the content and time that it occurs: