The Meatco Comprehensive Health Management, Services and Outreach Project was established to provide a sustainable and effective health management system that provides health care services to the staff of Meatco Windhoek Factory, the dependents of the staff and to staff and dependents in the supply chain of Meatco contributes towards the long-term viability and sustainability of the business. The project is implemented and funded through the Private Public Partnership through the Namibia Employer’s Federation (NEF), GIZ and Meatco.

Project objective

The overall objective of the project is to establish a sustainable and effective health management system that provides health care services to the staff and the dependents of Meatco Windhoek Factory and the staff and dependents in the supply chain of Meatco. The supply chain is here clearly defined as the farms supplying livestock/meat to Meatco.

Specific objectives are to:

• Establish a sustainable and effective health management system providing health care services to the staff of Meatco Windhoek Factory
• To develop and pilot interventions to widen the health care service provision to farm workers and their dependents in the supply chain of Meatco
• To develop and pilot interventions to widen the service provision to dependents of staff of the Meatco Windhoek Factory
• To establish a comprehensive management and support system that supports strategic management decision making and reporting to external stakeholders on health care services

Outreach Program

The Meatco Foundation has contracted PharmAccess Foundation Namibia as external service provider with expertise in the field of Health, to implement the outreach program for both the dependents of Meatco Workers and the Farm workers in the Supply chain of Meatco.

The outreach program targets the dependents of Meatco factory workers and the dependents in the Meatco Supply chain i.e. farmworkers. The program is being piloted of which recommendations will be made and viable package developed for upscaling.

PharmAccess contracted and developed a package that will be piloted through to conduct outreach program through its Mr. Sister mobile clinic.

The dependents were mapped and specific areas to provide the service were identified in the informal settlement of Windhoek and Okahanja. Driomiopsis was identified with the support from the Omaheke Regional Health Directorate as a fair representation of the supply chain.

The Clinic provides initial basic and extended wellness screening to both the dependents of Meatco employees and that of the supply chain.

Thereafter Primary Health Care will be rolled out in the identified sites in the informal settlement in Windhoek and Okahanja for the dependents of Meatco Workers. The identified sites in the informal settlements are:

Similarly the Primary Health Care service is being provided to the Drimiopsis settlement for the dependents of the supply chain.

The outreach activities for the dependents of staff of the Meatco Windhoek factory and the supply chain, as well as the SafeCare quality assessment have been outsourced to PharmAccess Foundation Namibia. A steering committee will be established consisting of Meatco, GIZ and NEF/GCNN, to provide oversight to the project; quarterly meetings will be held.