The Healthy Family Network is SFH’s Social Franchise network that is aimed at strengthening the existing health care system by engaging private sector providers in the provision of essential quality health services that is accessible and affordable to the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria. The network was set up in 2010 under the Women’s Health Project, providing family Planning services through a network of privately own hospitals. However, from 2013, the network expanded its scale to recruit more privately owned hospitals, maternities, pharmacies and patent proprietary medicine vendors (PPMVs) located in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. In addition the network supports the providers in provision of quality health care services (through capacity building, commodity supply and quality improvement initiatives), facilitation of medical credit fund by making the facilities bankable and demand generation through strategic behavioral change communication activities. Presently, the network comprises of 340 hospitals and clinics, 195 pharmacies and 185 PPMVs across 22 states of the federation.
There was also an expansion in the scope of services. Presently, the network trains and provide quality services in the areas of Family planning (short and Long acting), maternal and child health, including BEmONC services and safe motherhood, Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI), Post Abortion care services, HCT and STI management, Malaria services, Cervical Cancer screening and Preventative therapy, clean and safe water treatment, diarrhea prevention and treatment etc.
The key pillars of the network have been Quality, Access, Equity and Cost effectiveness. SFH staff provides quarterly supportive supervisory visits to the providers consistently to ensure the quality of service delivery.
Under the AHME project for example, the HFN averted a total of 2,002,646.28 DALYs and averted a total of 16,713 Maternal and 5,798 child deaths. It was also able to screen over 90,000 women for cervical cancer and provided cryotherapy treatment for about 4,096 women who tested positive to VIA. These services are delivered at a cost of less than $10/DALYs
Through our work with the PharmAccess foundation under the African Health Markets for Equity project, SFH implemented the SafeCare Stepwise quality improvement program to ensure that the quality of service is enhanced across the entire facility. This is in addition to the annual quality audit and the bi-annual external quality audits conducted to ensure that providers adhere to SFH’s and international quality standards. They have also been able to drastically reduce the price of services through the provision of affordable quality commodities at a subsidized rate through social marketing and the provision of consumable supplies.
SFH has conducted a number of business trainings for most of our network members, and providers have been able to accessed loans to improve their practices.
