Originally published by SHOPS Plus

Bineta Sène Sall, mid-wife and owner of the Al Noor clinic. She is known in the community as Madame Dieng. | Photo: SHOPS Plus

When flood waters damaged her clinic in 2013, Bineta Sène Sall had to move her practice to a rented facility in Petit Mbao, Senegal. As a midwife and owner of the Al Noor Clinic, she had focused her attention on her clients. When disaster hit, she was not financially prepared to withstand both moving and maintaining her client services. As a result, she had to cut back on her services.

Last year, Sall participated in a SHOPS Plus training on financial management. Following the training, she requested one-on-one coaching on how to implement the lessons she learned. With support from the program, Sall established an accounting system for her practice and made regular deposits to her bank account. She also set up a petty cash system for urgent expenses and started paying all other bills by check. This enabled her to organize and better manage the finances of her clinic, which reduced costs significantly and increased the facility’s savings.

With the savings from her business, Sall chose to invest in her clinic and offer new services. Previously, Sall provided services to pregnant women from prenatal consultations up to the time of delivery, but she could not deliver babies at her clinic. Fortunately, with her improved cash management skills thanks to the SHOPS Plus training and coaching, she was able to set up a room that now allows her to provide on-site delivery, family planning, and emergency analysis services for prenatal care. By re-establishing the services she had offered prior to moving to the new space in Petit Mbao, Sall is once again able to serve the patients she lost after the flood.

Today, the Al Noor Clinic is financially stronger, allowing Sall to give her staff a small raise and to budget a salary for herself.

Sall is very proud of her achievements. She is grateful for the SHOPS Plus training, which she credits with showing her the importance of good financial management. Her goal is to build a modern clinic and continue serving patients in Petit Mbao.

SHOPS Plus provides business and financial management training to private health care providers to help them run their businesses more efficiently and be able to provide the financial information needed for loan proposals. To further support private providers in implementing good business management practices at their facilities, SHOPS Plus offers one-on-one business coaching to those providers that demonstrate high motivation or that have ideas for investment projects requiring financing in the near term.