Providing Maternal Health Care to 60 mothers

While progress has been made on ensuring that more women survive childbirth, basic maternal healthcare remains out of reach for many women still. It is estimated that around 16 mothers die each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth in Uganda. As the UN phased out its millennium development goals, which included the target of cutting maternal deaths by 75%, we share with you our plans towards sustainable development goals #3 “To ensure healthy lives and promote well- being for all at all ages When Karin Medical Centre opened up to the community to address maternal and child health care in 2012, the number of mothers attending prenatal care was very low between 3-6 mothers per month. Women were also delivering their babies at home. This was very worrying for us, because we were providing these services of prenatal and post natal care for free at the facility. The health team then decided to meet with the health unit management committee to address this concern. It was discovered that women were not attending these services because of many reasons; the traditional birth attendants were actively discouraging mothers from delivering from a health facility through skilled care. Some mothers had a very negative attitude towards midwives and nurses who used foul languages and treated them with disrespect. The health team decided to set up a meeting with the local leaders, opinion leaders and village health team. During the meeting, it was made clear that they should all see the problem of maternal health as a community problem. Traditional Birth Attendants were assured that the health facility and nurses had not come to take away their jobs. In the meeting everyone was sensitised on the importance of mothers accessing and using skilled care givers during pregnancy, delivery and thereafter the barriers to service use and how they could act as partners with Karin Medical Centre, in order to improve both access to care and birth outcomes. After this meeting, each VHT was tasked to undertake village sensitisation and home visits to identify pregnant mothers and encourage them to attend ANC clinics. The committee also monitored and reported on issues related to maternal and new born health issues. The community and the health team have become partners in promoting access to and improving maternal health. Since then we have steadily seen the increase in the numbers of mothers attending ANC increase steadily, the clinic attends to between 55-60 mother per month. Today the mothers are so prompt to attend their ANC appointments and the VHTs have equally been effective in reminding them when they forget. Today expectant mothers love the clinic so much that they do not want to deliver anywhere else but from the Karin medical Centre! I believe we have achieved this success and the target is now to complete the maternity ward. Today, we are asking for a few clicks of your mouse: take 5 minutes to share our GlobalGiving page with your contacts and tell them why you decided to donate to us and why they should do the same. Please help us to save more mums and babies, by becoming a regular donor of this critical work, or making another one off donation. Thank you for your continued support. It really makes a great difference! Can you do more? Consider signing up for a monthly recurring donation today. Thank you for your support!

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In Uganda Malaria continues to be a major public health problem accounting for about 30–50% of all outpatient consultations and 35% of hospital admissions and a leading cause of mortality and morbidity. Pregnant women and their unborn children are vulnerable to malaria. With the current malaria outbreak in our district of Gulu, our main concern is for the expectant mothers and the children under five years old. This situation is so real, even in our health facility. Atim has been a regular attendant of the antenatal clinic, but this morning when she visited the clinic, she told the nurse that she was not feeling well, she felt tired and weak. Because of her symptoms and the current outbreak, the nurse suspected malaria and ordered the necessary tests. Examination of Atim’s blood under the microscope indeed confirmed her suspicion and Atims fears that she has malaria. On the blood smear, upto 6 percent of her red blood cells were infected, indicating a rather severe episode. She was immediately geiven treatment, giving her drugs for malaria that are safe in pregnancy. The nurse told her that she was concerned about her baby, because malaria can be harmful on pregnant mothers. During the next week, Atim remained weak and ill, and sometimes she even had hallucinations. She remained on bed rest for more days until she began to feel better. Malaria can increase the risk of negative outcomes such as premature delivery, miscarriage and stillbirth. Gulu district like many other districts in Northern Uganda are grappling with malaria outbreak. We seek to you our well-wishers and friends to support us with anti malarials and human resource to attend to the increased number of patients. We are a small but committed team, but with the current situation we cannot do it alone. I appeal to you to support us manage this situation; you have done it in the past and believe you will do it again. We need your support more than ever. P.S. We always have equipment needs at the clinic. If any of you works for an organization that may be able to help us, please let me know! You can contact me directly anytime at: cdo4uga@gmail.com

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