Funani Malata
Funani Malata is the clinical associate in obstetrics & gynaecology working in the Machinga District Hospital. He had first obtained a diploma in clinical science, then later graduated in B Sc - Obstetric & Gynaecology. The district that this hospital serves has an area of 3,771 sq km and a population of 874,447. The expected child bearing age in the district is 43,717. Apart from the hospital serving its own patients, it also receives critical cases from 22 facilities, of which 15 are government facilities and 7 are Christian Hospital Association of Malawi. Funani’s daily responsibilities include serving as:
- Clinical coordinator - He is responsible for preparing monthly duty roster for all the 45 clinicians and preparing monthly locum for those who worked during the weekends in health centers as well as all the other departments in the hospital totaling 225 medical personnels.
- Maternity ward in-charge. He has to make sure the ward is well organized in terms of how his colleagues must perform by ensuring and improving service delivery to their patients.
- Chair for paying services. He manages the paying service for outpatients and in-patients within our district hospital; for people who hire tents and ambulances. Of the money collected in these services, 60% of it are to be shared by all the health workers and 40% to be used for buying medicines and supplies after a six months period.
- Funani is always on standby to assist his colleagues when there are emergencies during child delivery.
As a district hospital, especially in the maternity ward, it receives patients from all 22 health centers. There are a total of 70 beds in the maternity ward. This includes 32 beds for high risk postnatal that are allocated to those who have been delivered through Caesarean section or had normal delivery but had complications during delivery, 30 beds for low risk postnatal ward - those who had normal delivery and with no complications during their delivery, and 8 beds in the labour ward.
There are not enough beds because there is a big number of deliveries every 24 hours. The total average daily cesarean sections is 12 and total normal delivery is 32. This means often with one bed occupied by two patients, and in the labour ward, some are even delivered on the floor. The cesarean section rate is 5 %, which is within WHO recommendation.