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Internet
and cell phone access has cut maternal deaths say officials |
BONSAASO,
1 December 2009 (IRIN) - Cell phones have cut dramatically the number of women
dying during childbirth in Amensie village in south-central
Health
and aid workers say while other improvements in primary healthcare in Amensie -
as part of the Millennium
Villages project - have contributed to the drop, the availability of cell
phones has been pivotal.
“When
we did not have mobile telecommunication, women were dying,” district nurse
Madam Lydia Owusu told IRIN. “It was horrifying to be pregnant here before this
project came along…Mothers used to bleed to death while waiting in their homes,
hoping a health worker would come to help them.”
“We
have not recorded a single maternal death in Amensie village since 2006 when
this project started,” she said.
Before
cell phone and internet technology were introduced to Amensie, some 20 women
died in childbirth each year, according to Owusu. In 2008 none did.
On
average 560 women die during childbirth or from pregnancy complications per
100,000 live births in
Amensie
resident Juliet Asante, 35, cradled her two-week-old son as she told IRIN: “My first
child died during delivery. It was painful because I now know she had to die so
that I can live.”
This
time her husband called the hospital with his new mobile. “In no time the
ambulance was here to take me. It was smooth.”
Amensie
is part of a cluster of villages called Bonsaaso, 60km from
Bonsaaso
is part of the Millennium Villages project, in which villages are selected by
development agencies to receive assistance in reaching the Millennium
Development Goals and lifting residents – in this case 30,000 – out of poverty.
Since
2006 development partners have built and improved Bonsaaso’s schools and health
clinics and provided an ambulance to the nearest district hospital in Tonto
Krom, 12km away.
But
even with the district’s first ambulance maternal deaths did not decrease, as
villagers could not communicate when they needed the vehicle, said Owusu.
Half of
women in
In 2006
mobile handset producer Ericsson teamed with mobile telecommunications firm
Zain to install internet access and mobile phone coverage in the villages
in 2006. They distributed free handsets to health workers and sold handsets to
villagers for US$10 each.
“We
entered the project because we believe information and communications
technology play a critical role in helping to end the poverty cycle,” Elaine
Weidman, Vice-President of Corporate Responsibility at Ericsson, told IRIN.
The UN
says maternal health overall has improved in Bonsaaso due to improved primary
healthcare services. But local nurse Owusu said the drop in deaths during
childbirth is due primarily to information and communication technologies (ICT)
plus the ambulance.
Leader
of the UN Development Programme team managing the project in
The
presence of computers in schools, for instance, has helped increase enrolment,
he said.
The World Bank and other institutions have established the
positive correlation between improved ICT and access poverty-reduction in
numerous studies.
But ICT
is by no means a panacea for improving health logistics, Afram stressed –
funding to purchase supplies and equipment must also be increased.
Sustainable?
ICT
firms are increasingly stepping in to address poverty-related problems with
technology solutions, according to Ericsson.
The
Grameen Bank’s Applications Laboratory, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, worked with the Ghana Health Service to provide affordable handsets
to pregnant women in Upper East Region. Women received answers to common ante-
and post-natal questions as well as reminders about check-ups or
vaccinations.
Afram
said he is concerned over what will happen to the ICT project in 2015 when
development partners will hand over the Millennium Villages project to the
government.
“How to
sustain the project beyond the 2015 deadline is our biggest worry because it
will continue to take some significant investment,” he said, estimating it
costs $2 million annually to run the project.
Ghana
Communications Minister Haruna Iddrisu told IRIN the government cannot continue
without private sector help. He said he has begun talks with computer firms to
explore how to finance the project past 2015.
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