Mercy In Action went into the disaster zone in the Philippines in November 2013 to provide emergency care to pregnant women and infants who survived typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda and were left without any maternity services. Mercy In Action already rebuilt one birth center on Leyte island, and we will build a second birth center on Samar island to replace destroyed birthing facilities there. All our birth centers are top quality and free to the patient, providing real help in disaster recovery.
This project has the potential to save lives on a massive scale in the years to come by preventing maternal and newborn mortality surrounding childbirth. The community devastated by super typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in the Philippines is facing the challenge of no where for the pregnant women to give birth safely after the disaster in rural Samar island. Without help to rebuild the destroyed birth centers, the survival of mothers and newborns during pregnancy and childbirth is seriously threatened.
As we help Midwife Lorina to build in the recovering disaster zone, she will again be able to give quality care to pregnant women. By rebuilding birthing facilities, we ensure that the midwives can again deliver babies in a safe, clean, free place. Midwives are best suited to assist normal birth and give needed emergency treatment and referral when needed. Midwives in the Philippines protect the most important resource a community has-its mothers and babies, and its hope for future generations!
Potential is for massive saving of lives in an area now at high risk for maternal deaths and newborn deaths. We expect to see higher rates of survival of the babies being born premature by giving good care, we expect to see lower rates of infection, hemorrhage and other birth complications that would be expected in this kind of a disaster zone. This will be accomplished by getting the local midwives and other health care workers back to work post-disaster, so they can provide good care again.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
