In Uganda, 7,000 women and 45,000 newborns die annually due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth. 90% of these deaths are due to 3 delays:
- Delay in decision to seek care
- Delay in reaching care due
- Delay in receiving adequate health care
In certain communities, women often travel long distances to reach a health center. They are forced to deliver in villages without a skilled attendant due to lack of funds for transport or the poor quality of the roads. Therefore, Mama Rescue intends to address the second delay, reducing the time to access quality care.
The Mama Rescue Project is a simple automated mobile-phone platform that provides vouchers enabling women to be transported by local motorcycle and taxi drivers to deliver in health centers.
They partner with local drivers who live close by our laboring mothers, creating a rapid response system between village and health centers, as well as between the health center and referral hospital when needed. The system relies on easy to use mobile phone technology that improves communication between drivers, midwives and doctors.
Since the beginning of the project, more than 7000 women have been transported to deliver in health centres using the Mama Rescue system. As a result, the percentage of births that take place in health facilities increased from 79.7% to 89% of all births. The time from home to health centre reduced from 1 hour 30 minutes reported at baseline to 15 minutes 15 seconds.
123 midwives were trained as system users for the Mama Rescue emergency transport component and 666 women have been referred from health centre to district hospital.
