© Ipas Nepal
© Ipas Nepal
The Ipas Nepal team preparing boxes of personal protective equipment to dispatch to health centers they support (above). The team delivered thousands of masks and gloves, plus eye protection, hand sanitizer, soap and other supplies to more than 300 health institutions, including in Duhabi (yellow building) and Biratnagar (green building).
Ipas is working to give health providers the information, training and supplies they need—including personal protective equipment (PPE)—so they can safely offer abortion and contraceptive care during the pandemic. In Nepal, Ipas supports the government’s COVID-19 response by distributing PPE to health centers and hospitals—and directly to Female Community Health Volunteers who connect women with health information and referrals.
Ipas Nepal has focused on PPE deliveries to extremely remote and isolated districts where health workers face a particularly acute need for protective equipment. At Mangalbare Primary Health Care Center in Nepal’s Ilam District, for example, health providers felt unsafe giving women contraceptive implants because they lacked PPE, and so they had started only offering condoms and contraceptive pills. One provider told the Ipas Nepal team she had young children at home and simply couldn’t risk infection. After Ipas delivered boxes of PPE to the facility, this same provider reported she felt happier and safer—and the center had restarted implant services and already provided four women with implants within just two days.
Courtesy of Joypurhat District Hospital
At the Joypurhat District Hospital in Bangladesh, Ipas remotely managed the placement of handwashing basins in public areas for patients and visitors to use before entering and exiting.
Courtesy of Joypurhat District Hospital