Gates Package — page 543

Today, Ethiopia has more than 15,000 health posts delivering primary health care to the farthest reaches of this rural country of 85 million. They are staffed by 34,000 health workers, most of them young women from the communities they serve with one year of basic health training. In 2009, Melinda traveled to Ethiopia and saw how these health reforms were transforming the country. Where health services were once nonexistent, rural areas had health clinics stocked with vaccines and medicine. Where once there was little local health expertise, Melinda learned how health workers delivered babies, administered vaccines, and supported family planning. Over the past decade, Ethiopia's government has focused on the challenge of extending health services to more people in a rural country with high malnutrition and chronic food shortages. Here, a worker cross-breeds bean plants at an agricultural research station (Melkassa, Ethiopia, 2012). I got the chance to see that progress on my first trip to Ethiopia last March. Driving through the countryside, I felt the challenge Ethiopia faces in connecting its people to health care. Rural Ethiopia is composed of vast tracts of farm land--85 percent of the population survives on farm plots ofless than two acres--connected by sometimes very rough roads. On the way to the Germana Gale Health Post, I saw piles of teff, a grain used to make Ethiopia's spongy flatbread, and I saw people walking everywhere. There were few other vehicles, even few bicycles. The post, a faded green cement building, was bigger than I thought it would be, and you could tell workers took great care of the place. Inside, two health workers showed me a well-stocked cabinet of the tools for their job, including folic acid, Vitamin A supplements, and malaria drugs. The workers provide most services at the post, though they also visit the homes of pregnant women and sick people. They ensure that each home has access to a bed net to protect the family from malaria, a pit toilet, first aid training, and other basic health and safety practices. One health worker told me Examining a bed net display at the Germana__ she had done 41 deliveries so far that year, most of which were Gale Health Post (Dalocha, Ethtopia, 2012). performed at people's homes. 2013 Annual Letter from Bill Gates