A new emergency childbirth hotline is helping to save the lives of mothers in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea.
The Childbirth Emergency Phone Project was launched by AusAID as a pilot project in October last year to help reduce the high maternal death rate in PNG.
The Alotau Hospital has reported mothers and babies are being saved because rural health workers can now directly communicate with trained medical staff at the hospital’s labour ward.
CEO of Alotau Hospital, Mr Billa Naidi, described two recent examples of births that could have ended very differently without access to specialist advice.
In one instance, a mother in a remote part of the province went into premature labour. The village nurse in attendance was described by Mr Naidi as sounding afraid and confused over the phone. Using the emergency hotline, a doctor based in Alotau Hospital was able to successfully talk the village nurse through the delivery. The nurse was asked to perform a simple manoeuvre that she had not been trained to do, but which ultimately saved the life of mother and child.
Another case reported saw medical staff at the hospital labour ward assist a rural health worker keep a mother and child alive—long enough to be transferred to Alotau Hospital. In this case, the 40-year-old mother, who had already been through five pregnancies, was physically unable to have a normal delivery.
Complications such as these often do not end well for mothers giving birth in PNG—particularly in rural and remote areas. Approximately 1500 women die in childbirth each year, or around five a day. PNG also suffers from few and poorly-trained midwives and community health workers. To address this, Australia is boosting the health workforce by providing 1400 health scholarships over three years.
Provincial health authorities will be visiting a number of health centres around the Milne Bay Province, distributing solar phone chargers, books on maternal health and promoting the free call emergency service. The emergency phone service is funded through AusAID’s Economic and Public Sector Program and operated in partnership with the Milne Bay Provincial Health Authority.