NCDI Poverty Network Co-Chair Dr. Ana Mocumbi and the Mozambique Co-Secretariat and Southern Africa Regional Hub team recently hosted CIS Executive Director and NCDI Poverty Network Co-Chair Dr. Gene Bukhman and CIS Director of Programs Dr. Emily Wroe for a three-day visit to the provinces of Maputo and Sofala as Mozambique prepares to implement PEN-Plus.
Mozambique is one of ten NCDI Poverty Network countries that are initiating PEN-Plus services by opening their first PEN-Plus clinics at rural district hospitals in 2022. Over the next three years they will establish training sites to support expansion to other districts and develop operational plans for national scale-up. In Mozambique, Nhamatanda Rural Hospital will host the PEN-Plus clinic, providing affordable, accessible care for rheumatic heart disease, type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, and other severe, chronic NCDs to the vulnerable community.
During the three-day visit, Dr. Mocumbi, Dr. Bukhman, and Dr. Wroe met with key stakeholders, including PEN-Plus implementing partners Doctors with Africa CUAMM, officials from the Mozambique government and Ministry of Health, and representatives from the WHO and UNICEF country offices.
The Network made a one-day excursion to Nhamatanda Rural Hospital where they met with future PEN-Plus clinicians, hospital leadership, and CUAMM. While in Beira, the capital of Sofala Province, the Network team met with the Clinical Director of Beira Central Hospital and discussed how the referral hospital will support efforts to train mid-level providers to diagnose and treat the package of severe, chronic NCDs that are covered by PEN-Plus.
The Mozambique Co-Secretariat took the occasion of the visit to host a scientific seminar that provided an overview of PEN-Plus and the NCDI Poverty Network’s work to the larger Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) community, as well as representatives from the Ministry of Health and World Health Organization.
This was the first time Dr. Wroe and Dr. Bukhman of the Boston Co-Secretariat have been able to visit the Mozambique Co-Secretariat and Regional Hub based at UEM since they were established in October 2021.