Aberdeen Women’s Center, Freetown, April 21 We hope that Act Three never arrives. We work hard in Acts One and Two – training and equipping midwives and improving emergency obstetric care – so that mothers can experience a safe pregnancy and the health of their newborn. But at present time, we cannot draw the curtain after only two acts, and
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By Lindsey Pollaczek, Program Officer Sierra Leone has one of the highest reported maternal death rates in the world. In 2005, the maternal mortality ratio was 2,100 deaths per 100,000 live births and a woman’s lifetime risk of dying due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth was 1 in 8. Long distances to health facilities, the cost of health services,
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Today is the final day of the International Society of Obstetric Fistula Surgeons (ISOFS) meeting in Dakar, Senegal. It has been an incredibly busy few days as fistula surgeons and health professionals have come together to share diverse experiences, research findings, and recommendations for improving quality of treatment, management, and prevention of obstetric fistula. Representatives from more than 40 countries
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For the last two and a half years Direct Relief has been supporting Maridi County Hospital through its partnership with AMREF in Southern Sudan. Maridi County has an estimated population of at least 500,000, but in reality no one knows the true population size as people are still returning from the refugee camps in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of
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Dr. Mike Marks and I just returned from visiting AMREF and the National Health Training institute (NHTI) in Southern Sudan. NHTI was established in 1998 as a school to train clinical officers. In 2006 it began training community midwives and is now running a third training program, for public health officers. NHTI has graduated 269 clinical officers and 26 community midwives;
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Santa Barbara, CA, July 13, 2010—In response to the July 11 terrorist bombings in Kampala, Direct Relief International today authorized an immediate cash grant of $30,000 to cover emergency medical needs of victims. The funds are being provided to AMREF’s (African Medical Research and Education Foundation) Uganda office in response to an urgent request from the Ministry of Health struggling
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