MAMA RESCUE PROJECT

Thanks to the generous support of Enabel Wehubit: the Belgian Development Agency, Together Women Rise and Spring Fertility, in 2021, the BAMA Program launched the Mama Rescue Project. Mama Rescue is a simple automated mobile-phone platform that provides dispatch for emergency perinatal transportation in rural areas; and transport vouchers enabling women to be transported to deliver in health centers, received after attending four antenatal care appointments. By coordinating transport from home to health center, logistics, and communication between facilities, Mama Rescue aims to reduce delays associated with childbirth, thereby mitigating risks related to maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity, and increasing mothers’ and midwives’ confidence in the health system. Uganda suffers from a maternal mortality ratio of 336 deaths per 100,000 live births and it is thought that 75% of these deaths can be attributed to one of three types of delay:

• The delay in the decision to seek skilled maternity and newborn care

• The delay in accessing skilled maternity and newborn care once the decision is made

• The delay to receive quality care once reaching a health facility

The first two of these delays are often related to transportation. Mama Rescue facilitates transport and uses local drivers’ existing phone networks for payment on a mobile money system already widely used, thus leveraging and strengthening existing infrastructure to connect health centers, hospitals, and patients. There are two components to the Mama Rescue system, serving three objectives:

Facility-Based Delivery:  Mama Rescue provides transport vouchers to women enrolled in the system after they log four antenatal care visits. These vouchers guarantee them free transport by boda boda (motorcycle) from home to a health center, for delivery with a BAMA-trained midwife. Our Babies and Mothers Alive Program has documented that if mothers attend all four antenatal care visits, the likelihood that they will deliver in one of our partnering health facilities reaches 81%!

Rapid Emergency Response: Midwives at health centers can use their simple mobile phones to request emergency transport, using an automatic dispatch system. Local taxi drivers are alerted, and one is selected based on response time. Upon transporting the woman to the receiving facility, the driver is paid immediately with mobile money. 

Communication of Critical Information: Referring midwives use Mama Rescue menus on their phones to send clinical information to the hospital, ahead of the woman’s arrival. This enables the hospital midwives to prepare for the admission and reduces the wait time for services such as surgical procedures and blood transfusions.

Watch this moving video to learn more about how Mama Rescue provides lifesaving transportation for Ugandan Women in labor.