Africa-Press – Tanzania. WHILE the world continue to observe this year’s 16 days against gender violence occasion, the Moshi based KCMC Zonal Referral Hospital (KCMC ZRH), in Kilimanjaro region made another milestone within the country’s health sector following the launching of the Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Child Abuse Protocol at the hospital.
Speaking during the inauguration of the protocol recently, at the hospital, the GBV and Child Abuse protocol coordinator at the KCMC ZRH Prof. Declare Mushi, said the new service was meant to provide services to the victims of abuse efficiently and professionally.
“Survivors of GBV and Violence Against Children (VAC) experience several challenges in accessing health care services in most health facilities; such challenges include that of the inadequate knowledge of health professionals in managing the violence related cases”, he said.
He added, “Another challenge is the lack of a clear procedure to follow while attending the survivors at the hospitals; this protocol is an essential tool that will build the capacity of health care service providers who will be assigned to serve GBV and VAC victims”.
Prof. Mushi continued to say that the protocol would also be there to make sure those survivors of GBV and VAC regardless of their age, background or ethnicity were cared for in an effective, professional and ethical manner at their arrival at KCMC ZRH.
He said the sections which would be covered through the introduced protocol services included the identifying of GBV/VAC related issues, taking medical history of victims, maintaining confidentiality and privacy as well as collecting medico-legal evidence.
“Other areas will be the focus on clinical management of rape, burns and wounds sustained by victims, sections which would be the critical parts of this newly introduced protocol at KCMC”, he noted.
Speaking during the launching, the KCMC ZRH Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr. Sarah Urassa, said the introduction of the protocol would bring new hopes for GBV and VAC survivors. Dr. Urassa represented the KCMC ZRH Executive Director (EDR) Prof. Gileard Masenga, during the occasion.
“The launching of this protocol is another clear evidence that KCMC hospital remains committed to providing access to gender-sensitive health services in order to ensure healthy outcomes for abuse victims in the country”, she said.
She added, “We at the KCMC hospital are also committed to ensure that children, women and men will be provided good services through this newly established protocol; the intention here is to improve gender equity and equality within the health sector in the society at large”.
Earlier, when presenting the overview of the GBV/VAC project, Dr. Amedeus Maro said that according to the statistics which were released on November 12, this year, there were more than 6,100 violence related cases of which more than 5,000 victims were girls. According to him more than 3,500 of the number were rape related cases.
“This figures explains clearly the importance of the availability of this GBV/VAC protocol; we are optimistic that the availability of this protocol will motivate more violence victims to seek the attention of skilled healthcare providers”, he added.
For his part the Stop Violence Coordinator Dr. Joachim Kessy, said that the newly introduced Protocol which will be implemented by the KCMC ZRH, was the results of the collaboration between KCMC ZRH, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMUCo) and the Germany Based Heidelberg University through the Giz funding.
“The main goal of this project is to build potential health care providers who will serve GBV and VAC Survivors who will visit KCMC to seek violence based services, Hence, the introduction and launching of this Protocol, which is the first of its kind in the Country”, he Said.
For More News And Analysis About Tanzania Follow Africa-Press
