Country:
Funding:
UGX 18,000,000
Ownership:
UPMC members
Partners:
Status:
Product testing on-going
Strategic Focus:
Antenatal Care
Target Beneficiaries:
Expectant women in refugee settlements and women of childbearing age
Type of Solution:

An antenatal care service provider that will help expectant mothers living in refugee communities access safe delivery services within their community to solve the problem of long distances to the nearest health facilities through establishment of mobile antenatal clinics

Introduction

UPMCs social mission is to provide accessible and quality ANC services to expectant mothers within refugee settlements and host community.

The UPMC service is to help expectant mothers aged 18-35 based in refugee settlements who want to attend antenatal care  by reducing the high transport cost to a health facility caused by long distances and providing antenatal services closer to them thus enabling safe delivery in the health facilities.

Expectant mothers aged 18-35 live in a refugee settlement that has few health facilities that are distant-12 km apart thus increasing the risk of maternal death. Currently, the expectant mothers are walking long distances to visit health facilities for Antenatal Care visits and hiring motorcycles which are expensive. If we reduced transport costs through providing low-cost mobile antenatal care services in multiple locations closer to the expectant mothers and thereafter referring them to equipped health facilities for specialized treatment then we'll observe increased follow up ANC visits and reduced maternal deaths within the settlements.

Progress and Results

  1. Needs Assessment: From the experiment, 654 community members attended the session with 126 expectant mothers and teenage girls (18 year olds) in attendance who participated to acquire more knowledge. The experiment target sed distant settlements to address the challenges affecting expectant mothers. There was one labour bed in the settlement camp; Few health workers in settlements; the Ambulance doesn’t respond to medical emergencies with urgency and Some expectant mothers do not want to go to the health facilities because of language barrier
  2. Provision of Antenatal Care Services: Through this experiment, the team wanted to learn whether the antenatal initiative limited proposed services like; malaria, syphilis and HIV screening, abdominal and general examination, health and nutrition education and referral etc will be achieved through support of VHTs who conduct activities not limited to identifying and mapping and mobilization among others
  3. They’re also discovering if the bicycle/motor bike as transportation means would enable us access our clients easily and reduce the cost of implementation. By this, they hope to be in position to offer last mile accessible and quality ANC care and basic healthcare to the within and without community.

Challenges and Lessons Learnt

The long distance covered by the expecting mothers from their homes to the health facilities, expensive health care services, limited knowledge on the value of Antenatal Care Services to mention but a few have been the biggest barriers to the work the team is doing.