Mouvement Universel pour la Survie de l’Humanité (MUHUSUM) is a non-profit organization based in Niamey, Niger. It is a health and humanitarian organization that plans and implements public health and humanitarian projects in order to improve the living conditions of people across Africa and the world. The organization has operations in Niger, Benin, Burkina-Faso MUHUSUM is a member of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network.
At the beginning of the year, MUSUHUM had set down its annual work plan and started its implementation by February 2020. In March we had the first cases of COVID-19 but without much impact on the national health & economic situation. By mid-April, the fast-rising in the prevalence led us to the first lockdown and hence some challenges came up.
- First, we faced a progressive drop in our consultation rate (-25 to 30%). By May 2020 the psychosis reached its top and the economic situation got worse.
- The second challenge was obviously the financial management of our activities due to the drop in our dispensary’s incomes and the hike in the prices of medical products.
- The supply chain was affected in terms of stock out of some materials like gloves and masks.
Meanwhile, our special strategic plan helped us achieve some success.
- Our annual work plan at MUSUHUM was reviewed in April and adjusted to cope with the new situation. We redirected our annual budget almost exclusively to support our health facilities facing financial issues. This helped us get through the year without laying off employees or shutting down any department.
- We included the COVID-19 strategic plan in all our ongoing projects and favored teleworking as much as possible.
- The only sector of our dispensaries that was exempted from the tough situation was maternity. The drop in the birth rate was insignificant due to our strict restrictions.
- Above all, we have recorded no case of death due to COVID-19 within the 5000+ patients we treated in all our health facilities.
- In support of these activities, we also received some donations (gloves and masks) from the private health facilities platform.
