By Oduor Alvin
The Government of Kenya, the U.S. Government through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Vodafone Foundation, Safaricom Plc, and M-PESA Foundation agreed to a new public-private partnership to bring emergency transportation system M-mama to Kenya.
The initiative will not only ensure efficient transport access in the case of obstetric emergencies that will save the lives of mothers and newborns.
According to the Cabinet Secretary of Ministry of Health, Nakhumicha S. Wafula there are several challenges that lead to deaths of mothers, babies and children. Key among them include delays in making decisions to seek for health care intervention, delays in reaching the health facility due to transportation challenges and delays in receiving timely health care interventions.
“M-mama will help in emergency referral system by swiftly responding to transport emergency calls to pregnant women and newborns facing complications to appropriate healthcare facilities,” the CS said.
Approximately, 6000 women and 35000 newborns in Kenya die annually from various complications. This is evident that the rate of Maternal and National Mortality and morbidity from preventable causes around pregnancy, labor, delivery and postnatal period is still very high.
“I would like to acknowledge that losing a mother or a baby during pregnancy, child birth or soon after delivery is indeed a painful experience. Besides the socio-economic loss to society, when a mother die, a family is left in distraught, destitute and hopeless,” CS Nakhumicha said
The CS said that ensuring safe pregnancy, delivery and post delivery period so as to attain the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is government key priority.
“We must ensure that no individual is left behind in pursuit of UHC, due to financial constrains of geographical barriers. By pooling our resources, streaming our efforts and implementing effective strategies, we can provide comprehensive healthcare services to every corner of our great nation,” CS Nakhumicha said.
She added: “I note that M-mama is aligned to Kenya’s Development and Health agenda and will provide an opportunity to strengthen primary health care and digitalization in the health by use of digital platform. M-mama will certainly catalyze health sector collaborations and partnerships for safe motherhood thereby accelerating achievement of many maternal and perinatal targets. This initiative would not have come a better time like now and we fully support the partnership.”
The CS directed officers responsible for this initiative to begin working jointly with the partners and counties to begin the process of un-packing this initiative and to design a robust and yet responsive emergency transport system for clientele.
M-Mama works with a clinically trained dispatcher managing referrals and confirms facility availability to ensure women and newborns in emergency situations can be promptly managed.
The program also recruits, trains, and pays local community and taxi drivers to provide additional emergency transport options when ambulances are unavailable, ensuring greater availability of transport for patients. The service will be accessible through a free landline and mobile phone number.
M-mama has shown to contribute to a 38 percent decrease in the number of maternal deaths in pilot locations in Africa. Since it was created by Vodafone Foundation and USAID in 2013, m-mama has transported over 28,000 women and newborns and is conservatively estimated to have saved over 900 lives.
She added that no mother or child deserves to die and it is the government’s onerous duty to deliver quality and holistic maternal and neonatal services for all.
