WHO is rolling out a successful approach to expand access to safe toilets for better quality, people-centered health care in Cox’s Bazar.
WASH FIT - Water and Sanitation for Health Facility Improvement Tool - is a multi-step and interactive tool designed to develop, monitor and continuously improve water supply, sanitation, and hygiene in health facilities. The approach contributes to improve quality of health care services, to reduce maternal and child mortality, and to reduce health facilities acquired infection and antimicrobial resistance infection.
“We are now in our 5th month of using the WASH FIT methodology and we have already seen results. To me, the beauty of WASH FIT is that it improves staff knowledge and safety measures that will lead to increased patient safety and outbreak response capacity”, says Kallol Mukherji, Regional Coordinator Health at Terre des hommes (TDH).
At TDH in Teknaf, it took a team effort to safely manage sanitation, ensure safe use of water and sustainable waste management. The NGO aims to reduce health care-related infections and costs, increase trust and uptake of services, efficiency, service delivery and even improve staff morale.
“We started with the waste management where we were looking at segregation of waste, medical and bio waste as well as sharps. We didn’t have an incinerator in the Primary Health Care unit, so we built one. Then we were looking at water quality testing which kind of brought us to water supply. Currently we have a water pipeline and we do test it”, explains the Regional Director of Terre des hommes.
At BRAC, the World Toilet Day is keeping the team busy. The willingness to implement WASH FIT brought Naim Ahamed, Hygiene Promotion Specialist at BRAC, to the WHO WASH FIT training, held this week in Cox’s Bazar.
“I came here to learn about the WASH FIT approach, so we can implement it in our hygiene promotion, WASH and health program to improve BRAC operations. So far, we have organized hygiene and health promotion sessions, messaging, household visits, and water quality testing”, tells the Hygiene Promotion Specialist acting at camps 14, 15, 8E and 8W.
Since 2018, the WASH FIT training reached over 250 health workers in Cox’s Bazar having been implemented in more than 60 health facilities.
"You, as managers, have to be committed to support the WASH FIT team to set a WASH improvement plan in your health facility. For instance, if you want to prevent infections in your health facility then you should support the WASH/IPC activities. You also need to think ahead on sustainable financial allocation to operate and maintain WASH/IPC facility and services”, suggests WHO WASH Emergency Response, Bizuneh Wassie, at the WASH FIT training held in Cox’s Bazar.
During the training, Terre des hommes shared how the NGO improved accessibility of people with disabilities in its health facility in Teknaf, “we didn’t have a washroom which was specifically designed for disabled people. Now we already have the washroom, but we still need a few more ramps, that is the area of focus now. So, this is a very classic example of how WASH FIT has been implemented in the healthcare facility and how it has helped us improve our quality of service”, explains Kallol Mukherji.
According to WASH FIT, improved sanitation facilities include flush/pour flush toilets connected to a piped sewer system, septic tank or pit latrine, pit latrine with slab, ventilated improved pit latrines and composting toilets. To be considered usable, a toilet must be accessible, functional and should provide sufficient privacy for users.
By rolling out WASH FIT in the Rohingya refugee camps, WHO aims to ensure safe, adequate and inclusive toilets to prevent infection transmission and respect the right and dignity of staff and patients.