Emergencies and humanitarian crises
Maternal health
Benin
Axes of intervention
Care and surgery
Training and skills transfer
Prevention and screening
Building and equipping hospitals
Start date: 1998
In Benin, health infrastructures are still fragile. That's why La Chaîne de l'Espoir helps children by giving them access to the surgical care they need, and supporting the training of local healthcare professionals in pediatric specialties.
Background
Humanitarian emergency in Benin
38.5% of the population
of Benin’s population live below the poverty line.
More than 9 out of 100 children
die before the age of 5.
Only 37% of rural healthcare facilities
have the necessary equipment (55% in cities).
Source: African Development Bank (2019 figures), Unicef (2020 figures)
Benin’s economy is developing, with positive growth since the end of the Covid crisis. Nevertheless, the population is not benefiting from this dynamic everywhere, particularly in the most remote regions. Unemployment (especially among young people), poverty and the unavailability of essential public services are still all too often part of everyday life for many Beninese. To make matters worse, access to healthcare remains problematic, not only because of the cost to these vulnerable populations, but also because of the lack of appropriate facilities throughout the country, and of healthcare personnel trained to deal with the most complex pathologies. Benin remains the West African country where infant mortality is falling most slowly.
To reverse this trend and enable sick children to benefit from the surgical care they need, we’ve been mobilizing since 2012. And because every child counts, we are deploying our action in major cities as well as in the most remote regions.
Our humanitarian aid action in Benin
Improving access to surgical care for Beninese children
While Beninese children often suffer from infectious pathologies (malaria, diarrhea, respiratory infections…), pediatric surgery is still considered too costly and a low priority. Yet, in many cases, an operation can radically change the course of a child’s destiny, and even save his or her life.
To overcome these obstacles, since 2012 we have forged partnerships with the Centre hospitalier universitaire de la mère et de l’enfant Lagune (CHU-MEL) and the Centre national hospitalier universitaire Hubert Koutoukou Maga (CNMU-HKM), both located in the capital Cotonou. Every year, we carry out pediatric, urological and reconstructive surgery missions there (notably in the burns department, whose development we have supported since 2016). These missions are an opportunity for local doctors, surgeons and nurses to work with teams of pediatric specialists, thereby strengthening their skills in this field.
These missions are accompanied by equipment donations and preventive maintenance training to ensure that these hospitals have access to and can maintain equipment adapted to the smallest patients. This equipment is essential for the management of the most complex pathologies (anesthesia respirators, pediatric fiberscopes for digestive tracts, vein illumination devices, etc.).
Transfers abroad for the most complex cases
For the time being, Benin’s health infrastructure does not allow for the treatment of heart diseases requiring complex open-heart surgery. In such cases, La Chaîne de l’Espoir makes its echoes® remote echography system available. French teams then share a diagnosis with their Beninese colleagues, which can lead to the transfer of the sick child to France or Senegal for surgery, often as an emergency. Between 2012 and 2023, 1,244 Beninese children have been treated and saved in this way.
Caring for children, even in the most remote regions
The majority of Benin’s population lives in the countryside. For many families, access to health care in the cities, especially Cotonou, is difficult. Especially as travel can be complex and costly. That’s why, since 2018, we’ve been organizing itinerant humanitarian missions to reach the most remote populations. For many parents, this represents a unique opportunity to have a diagnosis by pediatric specialists and to treat their child. Each humanitarian mission in Benin, announced in advance on local radio stations, enables at least 250 consultations to be carried out in a few days, and around a hundred children to be operated on for conditions such as cleft lip and palate, burns after-effects or hernias.
For students of the Diplôme d’Etudes Spécialisées (DES) in pediatric surgery, these itinerant missions are also a valuable opportunity to refine their surgical techniques by confronting the realities of the field alongside experienced medical teams.
Kossi: a travelling mission changed his life
Kossi was just 5 years old in 2023 when a humanitarian mission from La Chaîne de l’Espoir stopped off at the hospital in Adjohoun, near her village 150 km from Cotonou. This event transformed his life! Suffering from an inguinal hernia, he was in intense groin pain, and at any moment risked a dramatic intestinal occlusion. During this humanitarian mission to Benin, 433 children benefited from a surgical consultation, including Kossi, who was operated on immediately afterwards, along with 80 other children. Today, his health problems are a distant memory…
Supporting the training of local caregivers
In all our humanitarian actions in Benin, we follow the same guiding principle: to enable the country’s healthcare professionals to deepen their specialization in pediatrics and gain in autonomy. This is why we organize training seminars twice a year in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal and Togo. The last seminar, held at the CHNU in Cotonou in 2021, combined theoretical and practical training, led by medical professors from France and Belgium. A total of 24 children were also operated on.
In all our humanitarian actions in Benin, we follow the same guiding principle: to enable the country’s healthcare professionals to deepen their specialization in pediatrics and gain in autonomy. This is why we organize training seminars twice a year in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal and Togo. The last seminar, held at the CHNU in Cotonou in 2021, combined theoretical and practical training, led by medical professors from France and Belgium. A total of 24 children were also operated on.
“I think it was the seminars and missions organized by La Chaîne de l’Espoir that taught me the most. I was able to exchange ideas with the greatest international experts in pediatric surgery.”
Dr. Eude Ulrich Elvis Goudjo, DES-CP-trained, now a pediatric orthopedic surgeon
Our partners
They support our humanitarian aid
in Benin
Photos: Pascal Deloche / Godong
