A case study on building capacity to improve clinical mentoring and maternal child health in rural Tanzania: the path to implementation

Background Tanzania is a low income, East African country with a severe shortage of human resources for health or health workers. This shortage threatens any gains the country is making in improving maternal health outcomes. This paper describes a partnership between Touch Foundation and NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing - Global, aimed at improving clinical mentorship and capacity among nurses and midwives at two rural hospitals in the Tanzanian Lake Zone Region. Clinical mentoring capacity building and supportive supervision of staff has been shown to be a facilitator of retaining nurses and would be possible to acquire and implement quickly, even in a context of low resources and limited technology.