Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”
(Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) –– World Lung Foundation’s (WLF) Maternal Health Program in Tanzania, will supply seven health facilities in Morogoro and Kigoma with medical equipment worth over $80,000 in the first quarter of 2014, in its continued effort to improve maternal health services.
The health facilities that will receive this donation are Ujiji, Mabamba and Nguruka health centers in Kigoma, Mwaya health center in Morogoro, and Kasulu, Kibondo and Maweni hospitals in Kigoma. WLF will also support the servicing of this equipment in the hospitals and health centers.
Since 2008, WLF has upgraded and renovated 10 health facilities in Kigoma and Morogoro in addition to training staff in comprehensive emergency obstetric care. The donated medical equipment includes baby warmers, laryngoscopes, oxygen masks and operating tables.
WLF Project Director Dr Nguke Mwakatundu explained that the equipment is particularly important for saving babies. “The WLF maternal health project is about saving lives. One of the biggest challenges that staff face in health facilities in Kigoma and Morogoro is lack of proper equipment needed for immediate intervention,” he said.
Baby warmers are essential for newborn babies in rural areas where low body temperature can be deadly. This condition, known as hypothermia, occurs usually in pre-term and underweight babies. The laryngoscopes and oxygen masks are crucial to helping newborns breathe, especially those suffering from birth asphyxia.
About WLF’s Maternal Health Program
Recently published data from WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, and The World Bank estimate that Tanzania, which accounted for 3% of global maternal deaths in 2010, reduced its Maternal Mortality Rate by 47% between 1990 and 2010. Since 2006, WLF has been working to help reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Tanzania by implementing a state-of-the-art maternal health program. The program, which has received financial support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Fondation H&B Agerup, Merck and Ericsson, aims to improve women’s access to high-quality emergency obstetric care, particularly in rural and isolated areas.
World Lung Foundation can point to several accomplishments across geographically strategic health centers and hospitals in seven districts in the Kigoma, Morogoro and Pwani regions. Since 2006:
• WLF has actively upgraded, renovated or rebuilt 12 rural health centers and four district hospitals to safeguard the existence of life-saving comprehensive emergency obstetric care. Prior to the program, patients had to travel as much as four hours to the nearest hospital. Now, emergency obstetric care is available in the community. • More than 100 assistant medical officers, nurse-midwives, and clinical officers have been trained in comprehensive emergency obstetric care or anesthesia.
• Health center utilization for delivery care has increased substantially, from about 3,500 deliveries per year in nine health centers prior to the program to about 9,000 in 2011 after the intervention.
• More than 1,000 C-sections have been performed.
• The Ulanga district, one of seven districts where the program is operating, saw a 32% decline in maternal deaths after the program was implemented.