Timor-Leste faces pressing challenges in achieving better health outcomes, yet effective solutions remain scarce. In a country where healthcare access is often limited by rugged geography and isolated communities, innovative approaches are essential to addressing these distinct needs. This is where outreach becomes invaluable, serving as the cornerstone of Maluk Timor’s strategy to bridge healthcare gaps and reach those most in need. By bringing critical services closer to underserved populations, Maluk Timor is transforming healthcare access across the nation.
Fundamentally, outreach as a strategy means that rather than expecting individuals to travel to healthcare services, those services, information, and resources make their way to remote and rural communities. In traditional healthcare approaches, healthcare is often centralised, with medical centres forming community hubs where healthcare can be readily accessible. By inverting this system, we’ve been able to bridge some of the divides that exist for many Timor-Leste residents, taking crucial healthcare services beyond traditional geographical limitations to overcome geographical challenges.
Here’s how we’ve used outreach as a strategy to improve health outcomes in Timor-Leste.
Maluk Timor’s outreach healthcare model
What works in one country doesn’t automatically work in the next. In Timor-Leste, we’ve worked for decades to find innovative and sustainable healthcare solutions to this developing nation’s challenges. In that time, we’ve…
- Upskilled healthcare professionals, supporting the development of a highly skilled national medical workforce, including doctors, dentists, nurses, community healthcare workers and health administrators
- Strengthened the country’s healthcare systems, drawing on a robust international network of international experts to develop the country’s healthcare system
- Supported primary health care through our Dili Clinic and outreach programs across the country
However, the need for healthcare that’s accessible still reaches far beyond our work to date. That’s why we’re focused on expanding our outreach model as a strategic way to meet this need, working to protect the rights of Timor-Leste’s remote communities to receive reliable and sustainable healthcare.
One example of outreach as a strategy in action is found in our Maternal & Child Health program. Supporting Timorese women and girls in the Ermera principality across the course of 2023, we were able to reach 14 communities in this region with this program. Activities included Participatory Action Research (PAR), the dissemination of key Material & Child Health messages, mobile antenatal care and malnutrition clinics, the upskilling of essential healthcare professionals in people-centred care and the provision of essential physical resources for this integral work.
Another area of our outreach work is in our oral health program. Here, our partnerships with organisations, including the National Institute of Public Health and the Ministry of Health Cabinet of Quality Control, allow us to develop nationwide outreach systems that advocate for a greater focus on oral health, increasing both community engagement and professional development support.
We’re also active in the area of Rheumatic Heart Disease, finding and treating Timor-Leste children who are most at risk of developing this serious disease. As Timor-Leste has one of the highest rates of RHD in the world, this is a crucial area where prevention through early detection and access to treatment can change the outcome for these children’s lives. Our team at Maluk Timor works directly with local health staff across the country, using outreach programs to build community awareness and engagement.
The impact of our outreach work
In Timor-Leste, 42% of the population live below the national poverty line, and 70% of its residents live in rural or remote areas. The economic, social and health challenges facing the country are significant – but they’re not insurmountable. Dedicated outreach programs focused on bridging the gaps and divides in the country’s healthcare systems are creating change day after day, creating a safer environment and brighter future for its residents.
As access to health services continues to expand, our work is dedicated to building the capacity and ongoing accessibility of the Timorese health workforce.
Up until 2023, the impact of our work included:
- Over 500,000 patients accessing Community Health Centres in 3 municipalities
- Over 77,000 people screened for TB
- Over 6,000 household contacts screened for TB
- The ongoing development of a quality and self-sustaining primary healthcare system
Looking to the future of healthcare in Timor-Leste
We’re grateful for what our team has achieved to date in collaboration with our partners and the people of Timor-Leste. However, there’s much work to be done. This Christmas, we’re raising funds to purchase vehicles that will allow our community healthcare workers to access rural locations via outreach programs, delivering integral healthcare services to areas of great need.
With your support, we can make a difference in the safety and sustainability of these rural communities, including in the areas of women’s health, maternal and child nutrition, oral health, Rheumatic heart disease, HIV, and TB.
This Christmas, give the gift of healthcare to some of Timor-Leste’s most rural communities. It’s a small gift that will make a world of difference!