Back Validation officer

OVERVIEW OF THE POSITION

Yemen is one of 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region with the highest maternal, new-born, and child deaths. The Yemen Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2013 and published in 2015 revealed a health care system that already was in dire straits even before the escalation of the political conflict in 2014; with poor indicators for maternal and neonatal health care. With the onset of the war in 2015, this scenario has significantly deteriorated. In response, Client is implementing projects to preserve and strengthen the health system to the extent possible; providing over 50% of the health facilities including Governorate level hospitals and health centers/units with operational costs, supplies, medicines, training/capacity building and incentives for health workers. Despite these investments, the utilization of the health facilities, especially for maternal and neonatal health care, is low, between 10 to 50 per cent of its current capacity. This is attributed to pre-existing access barriers and commonly reflected reasons for non-institutional deliver including:

a) Socio-cultural beliefs favouring childbirth at home over institutional deliveries; the majority 62 per cent of women reported they did not deliver in a health facility because it was better to give birth at home;

b) Financial barriers; with 25 per cent of women citing cost as a factor when deciding to deliver at home;

c) Distance to the health facility; 24 per cent of women reported that health facilities were too far away;

d) Community lack of trust in the quality and availability of services they would receive at healthcare facilities; 9 per cent of women reported poor treatment by health providers as a reason for deciding to deliver at home.

The Health Voucher Project (HVP) is, therefore, being introduced to stimulate the demand side of the health sector services by providing:

i. Financial incentives to meet transportation costs to health facilities during child delivery

ii. Enhancing referrals for high risk pregnancy and neonatal cases and;

iii. Promoting community involvement with the objective to support and subsequently enhance access to safe delivery for women in selected geographical areas; the overall objective being to ultimately increase health facility deliveries and postnatal care to reduce preventable maternal, and new-born, deaths.

The project targets pregnant women and mothers in the postnatal period with their new-borns. The HVP model requires that targeted beneficiaries are informed about the project objectives and parameters, enrol and access the services, upon which they will be able to redeem the voucher being for the transportation costs. Subsequently, the HVP model requires several interrelated processes to be conducted. These include facilitation of access and outreach to beneficiaries, beneficiary enrolment, voucher issuance and referral to health facilities, voucher 1 PMU Health section monitoring visit: Hamdan district Sanaa Governorate. 2 The Yemen Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2013 4 validation, payment, grievances redressal and third-party monitoring, all of them transversally supported by communication and MIS-HVP tools. To this end, Client will hire a Validation Organization responsible for validating beneficiaries’ compliance with specific pre-conditions to be eligible to receive their cash entitlements. To this end, the Validation Organization staff will be present at each health facility selected to participate in the project; and will be responsible to verify medical records (certified discharge sheet) and confirm that all enrolled beneficiaries visiting the health facility upon referral by the midwife have received one of the services covered by the project. They will be responsible for recording such confirmation in the HVP- MIS; and fill the voucher with all needed information in a clear way, to allow its redemption by the beneficiary.

GENERAL FUNCTIONS

Role objective:

The Validation Officer will based at a Health Facility in Hamdan district, Sana’a Governate and work as part of a small team under the guidance and supervision of the Team Lead/Master Trainer, to perform the following tasks:

· Verify medical documents and other relevant documentation provided by beneficiaries, receiving maternity (child delivery) and neo-natal services at the Validation Officer’s assigned Health Facility;

· Enter accurate data as provided by each beneficiary, in the database according to provided protocols;

· Participate in any needed data cleaning under the direction of the Team Lead;

· Keep validation desk, at the assigned Health Facility ordered, clean and tidy;

· Report any issue concerning data management, incidents or challenges to the Team Lead, immediately;

· Submit daily updates to the Team Lead;

· Participate in training sessions and meeting sas requested by the Team Lead, the client or the CTG Account Manager

· Ensure, promote, and maintain confidentiality regarding all information registered;

· Treat all beneficiaries with respect and dignity.

Deliverables

· Daily updates, to Team Lead;

· Meet validation targets;

· Maintain quality of validation data.

Project reporting:

· Will report to the Team Lead.

Team management:

· This role does not have team management responsibility.

ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE

Education:

§ Two years of post-secondary education.

Work experience:

§ 1 year experience in health activities, data collection and entry.

Geographical experience:

§ Minimum of 1 year of experience in Middle East (desirable).

Languages:

§ Fluency in Arabic and English is essential.

Key competencies:

· Able to learn and use new software for data entry;

· Demonstrated attention to detail;

· Flexible to the needs of the project and their team members;

· Able to work night shifts at health facilities (desirable);

· Excellent interpersonal communication skills, with an they ability to work with people from all backgrounds and show patience and understanding;

· Basic computer literacy;

· Ability to work as part of a small supportive team;

· Commitment to Humanitarian standards.

Other relevant information:

· Facilitator salary: US$ 1000 per month

· Number of paid working days: 24 days per month

· Number of leave days /month entitlement: 2.5 days per month

· Other entitlements to be paid as per Yemen labour law: As per Yemeni Labour Law