Background
Effectively addressing adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is a challenge for many countries around the world. The health system in Zambia lacks SRHR services specifically for young people and health workers are not trained on how to treat adolescents in a youth friendly way. The absence of services for Zambian youth has led to recurrent teenage pregnancies, unsafe abortions and a high prevalence of HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

About the project
This project was created to improve access to youth friendly sexual and reproductive health services for post-delivery and post-abortion patients at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka. The project team trained nurses and midwives on how to deliver sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents. They also held meetings and discussions with the hospital staff to sensitize the health workers on youth issues, discuss ways of improving the care for post-delivery and post-abortion adolescents and develop guidelines on how to provide comprehensive, friendly and non-judgmental services for young people.

Results
15 midwives and nurses were trained during the project and the hospital recorded an increased number of adolescents who accessed contraceptives. Training the nurses and midwives meant that the adolescents had more opportunities to also talk about contraceptives and other SRHR-related issues while in the hospital, and the health workers felt more confident initiating these discussions. By the end of the project, the trained nurses and midwives had taken on a leadership role in adolescent care and created online channels to share their knowledge and experiences with each other and their colleagues.

The next step for the project team is to ensure more midwives and nurses are trained – first at UTH Lusaka and then in other Zambian hospitals.

Year: 2015