Mama Maria Clinics - US Programs
Program: Primary Care
Our Primary Care program focuses on screening for and management of treatable childhood and adult diseases such as malaria, cholera, diarrheal diseases, Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia), and meningitis, as well as treating accidental injury, burns, and more. We also offer a vaccination schedule for both children and adults to eliminate preventable diseases.
We focus on identification of patients with specific disease risk factors and offer early intervention and preventive measures wherever possible. We highly encourage routine health maintenance and health education; our overall goal is to educate our people and partner with them for a healthy life.
Program: Maternal and Child Health
We believe every child deserves an optimal entry into the world. We therefore work to ensure the health of each pregnant mother and child by offering support from the prenatal to beyond birth. We focus on family planning, nutritional supplementation, pregnancy monitoring, perinatal classes, HIV mother-to-child prevention, and labor and delivery services. Beyond delivery we provide continued well-baby checks, subsequent check-ups, immunization services, as well as nutritional monitoring for mother and child.
Program: HIV/AIDS Care, and Treatment
Although the prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS is still high in communities such as those we serve, in this day and age, its spread, morbidity, and mortality can be greatly reduced with appropriate care. MMC offers education, preventative precautions, screening, testing, and ultimately, early therapy. We also strive for health maintenance in the population by encouraging adherence to therapy, counseling, and support for those patients with chronic diseases.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
This year MMC officially landed accreditation with Kenya’s National Hospital Insurance Fund. This means the clinic, in partnership with the Kenyan government, will receive reimbursement on medical fees for all who carry the national insurance card (e.g. those employed by the government – teachers, policemen, etc.). This accreditation was the final critical piece to MMC’s “sustainability puzzle” and has enormous impact on our model and ability to scale out.
Being able to implement the NHIF program is the single most separating factor of MMC from other healthcare solutions on the ground in Kenya. It allows us to, independent of further funding, provide the best, most reliable, most accessible healthcare to the most marginalized people of rural Africa.
Knowing we've created a model that will not have to rely on outside resources, including (given the world's economy), dwindling resources and unpredictable donations, we can confidently move forward to create more and more healthcare for these people in need — putting us squarely in the role of capacity building.
Working with the Ministry of Health and National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), identify areas of immediate need which are most prepared to accept our model and are working to establish a presence in all eight Kenyan provinces provides stability and national (tribal) inclusion, thereby making MMK a national product – open and accessible to all people of Kenya.
At present our primary focus is developing the funds to implement this growth plan.