National Consultant for Improving the Quality of Hospital Care to Reduce Maternal, Newborn and Child deaths, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

National Consultant for Improving the Quality of Hospital Care to Reduce Maternal, Newborn and Child deaths

( 2103631 )

Contractual Arrangement : External consultant

Contract Duration (Years, Months, Days) : less than 6 months

Job Posting: Aug 2, 2021, 9:33:19 AM

1. Purpose of the Position

Assistance in Quality Project Mission on Essential Perinatal care Workshop and Hospital assessment in September – October 2021

2. Organizational context

In the past decade, many countries strengthened access and coverage of effective interventions for women, newborns and children. Governments and partners invested in scaling up of essential interventions, and through coordinated actions, accelerated the pace of towards achieving MDGs and SDGs. As a result, global under-five mortality declined by 53% and maternal mortality by 44% from 1990 levels. However, each year nearly 300,000 women still dying of complications during pregnancy or childbirth and almost six million children 0 -14 years lose their lives mostly from preventable causes. Most maternal deaths resulted from five major direct causes; severe bleeding, high blood pressure, sepsis, unsafe abortion and obstructed labour. However, indirect maternal deaths that are a consequence of preexisting chronic conditions have been on the rise with NCDs, other indirect causes and mental health disorders making up almost one-third of all maternal deaths. Leading causes for child deaths are neonatal causes (preterm complications, birth asphyxia and neonatal infections), pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. However, as proportionate mortality due to communicable disease decreases, congenital anomalies, injuries, and NCDs (chronic respiratory diseases, acquired heart diseases, childhood cancers, diabetes, and obesity) are the emerging priorities in the global child health agenda. Therefore, health systems will need to be strengthened and supported to deliver seamless integrated high-quality services for prevention and management of both acute episodes and chronic health conditions from primary to referral level.

The current project aims to demonstrate the scale-up of best practices and lessons learnt from the paediatric quality of care project. However, the scope is hugely expanded to incorporate quality of care interventions and health systems strengthening in order to improve the entire spectrum of maternal, newborn and child health care and services in four selected countries.

The main goal of this initiative is to strengthen the national health systems’ capacity to accelerate ending preventable maternal, newborn and child mortality by improving the quality of care. This will be achieved by:

Strengthening institutional mechanisms for quality improvement in the health sector;

Building quality improvement capabilities and learning platform at national, district and health facilities levels;

Supporting the expansion of the experience nationally through capacity building, adoption, and introduction of intervention packages based on up-to-date national norms and standards of care, and the current WHO guidelines;

Introduction of the concept of maternal, perinatal and paediatric care standards, quality improvement activities in selected medical training institutions for doctors, nurses, midwives and other health professionals;

Development and update of WHO normative guidance and tools to ensure quality maternal, newborn and paediatric care;

Technical assistance to integrate screening, prevention, diagnosis and management of NCDs as part of the quality of care improvement for maternal, newborn and child health services;

Empowering mothers, families and communities to improve health-seeking behaviour through their active participation in responding and accessing quality services.

3. Description of duties

Under the supervision of the WHO Representative and National Professional Officer Reproductive, maternal, new-born, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) in Country Office in Tajikistan, the National Consultant will support the hospital assessment and essential perinatal care workshop planned in September – October 2021.

The specific deliverable of the National Consultant will be assisting MOH Technical working groups of obstetricians and neonatologists and technical working group of paediatricians to:

develop list of essential perinatal care standards and programmes being introduced and implemented in Tajikistan;

facilitate essential perinatal care workshop for Thematic Working Group members, WHO Collaboration Centre representatives and WHO CO NPOs;

provide technical assistance to TWGs from MOH in carrying out pilot hospitals assessment using WHO tool on quality of hospital-level mother and child services;

assess and advise on health facility infection prevention and control and public health measures in place in the context of Covid-19;

assess capacity building needs and provide critical recommendations on improving skills and experience at resource limited facilities;

Tconduct online and offline focus group discussion with MOHSP TWG members and follow up with NPO RMNCAH in WHO CO;

Provide presentations and report on findings and recommendations to WHO on current practices in ten pilot hospitals.

4. Recruitment Profile

Functional Knowledge and Skills

Communication – exchanging knowledge and ideas. Writing and summarizing skills, ability of verbal communication and facilitate discussion

Organizational management – time management and meeting deadlines, problem solving skills coordination and logistics handling abilities

Education Qualifications

Essential: Advanced university or Master’s degree in Obstetrician/Gynecology sciences, Pediatric/Public health expertise or other relevant field, such as international development studies related to Health, Nutrition and Hospital care.

Desirable: Excellent knowledge of MS Office applications and computer skills including the ability to make high quality technical presentations and data analysis.

Experience

Essential: At least 8 years of knowledge and skills in conducting hospital assessments using tools preferably by WHO for maternal and child health services at hospital level. Experience working in projects on perinatal care, neonatal care and ob/gyn services at hospital level

Desirable: Timely identifying problems and systemic challenges of quality of services. Ability to recommend best care plan for hospital administration on employing effective perinatal care tools.

Languages

Essential: Expert knowledge of English, Tajik and Russian

Desirable: Knowledge of Uzbek

5. Contract duration

The contract is for at least seventy days for the period of 10th August to 10th November 2021.

6. Location

Dushanbe with offsite work in Soghd and RRS regions of the Republic of Tajikistan.

7. Travel

Soghd Oblast, Rayons of republican subordination, Republic of Tajikistan

8. Remuneration and budget (travel costs excluded)

For this consultancy a fixed amount is determined at 65US$/day for seventy days .

9. Additional Information

This vacancy notice may be used to identify candidates for other similar consultancies at the same level.

Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.

A written test may be used as a form of screening.

If your candidature is retained for interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.

For information on WHO’s operations please visit: http://www.who.int.

WHO is committed to workforce diversity.

WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.

Applications from women and from nationals of non and underrepresented Member States are particularly encouraged.

WHO’s workforce adheres to the WHO Values Charter and is committed to put the WHO Values into practice.

Consultants shall perform the work as independent contractors in a personal capacity, and not as a representative of any entity or authority. The execution of the work under a consultant contract does not create an employer/employee relationship between WHO and the Consultant.

WHO shall have no responsibility whatsoever for any taxes, duties, social security contributions or other contributions payable by the Consultant. The Consultant shall be solely responsible for withholding and paying any taxes, duties, social security contributions and any other contributions which are applicable to the Consultant in in each location/jurisdiction in which the work hereunder is performed, and the Consultant shall not be entitled to any reimbursement thereof by WHO

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