9/18/2019

Our Lady of Grace wins Guardian of Life Award



The Our Lady of Grace Hospital at Breman Asikuma in the Cape Coast Archdiocese, won the maiden Guardian of Life Award for Excellence in Quality Improvement with their ‘Paulina Bottle’ innovation targeted at reducing Perinatal Mortality.
The award, the highest for individuals and institutions within the National Catholic Health Service (NCHS), was conferred on the hospital at the just ended 17th Annual Conference of the NCHS held at Takoradi, Western Region.
To address the increasing trend of the perinatal mortalities at the hospital, the facility adopted the Quality Improvement (QI) approach by co-opting major stakeholders including doctors, nurses as well as other health personnel and the community members to tackle the challenge.
The project was aimed at reducing the perinatal death rate of 31.1 per 1000 live births to 23.8 at the hospital, which served as the major referral facility for Ajumako District Hospital, Brakwa Health Centre, Odoben Health Centre and Jambra CHPS.
With appropriate tools, the QI team including Madam Paulina Esuman, Nurse Manager of the Hospital, Dr. Benedict Owusu Boateng, Obstetrics and Gynecology Specialist and Dr. Francis Bentil, General Surgeon and Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, identified the root causes of the challenge and subsequently introduced high level change ideas to track the changes in the system.
The facility also introduced the change idea of improving the referral system by giving prompt feedback on WhatsApp platform, as well as through training of staff at the Our Lady of Grace Hospital and midwives at Ajumako in Standard Operating Guidelines and Emergency Obstetrics Care among others.
The innovation nicknamed the ‘Paulina Bottle’ where unlettered pregnant women in the area were encouraged to appreciate the fetal kicks taught at regular antenatal clinics, by counting the peddles in the bottle each time they experienced a fetal kick.
After the introduction of the ‘Paulina Bottle’ intervention, the mid-year data of still births at the Hospital decreased by 53.5%, that is from 43 in 2018 to 20 in 2019.    
The Guardian of Life Award was instituted by the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference, to recognise deserving recipients who have shown exceptional innovation with significant impact on saving lives.


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