Referral transportation a challenge in local communities that is greatly affecting maternal health.

Maternal health being one of the serious issues that need special attention in the health sector,  we still see high mortality rates especially in the rural areas or low development countries. According to the World Health Organization, in 2017, approximately 810 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth every day. In Uganda, maternal mortality rate for 2017 was 375 women. Up to date, this is still an issue that greatly needs to be addressed as one of the main causes in rural areas is delays in transportation to health facilities.

This is evident in many cases that we have worked on in our health centre found in kirumba Kyazanga in Lwengo district, as some of the patients come to our facility after delivering from home and due to too much bleeding they need help from a hospital. This particular person reached our facility and we noticed that she urgently needed blood which she could only get from one of the nearby referral hospitals that is 1 hour drive from our facility. We currently have no ambulance at our facility which would have made movements for our patients easy so they had to look for a faster way. They couldn’t afford hiring a private car and a taxi(public means)  would take longer, so they then  decided to use a motorcycle for a 1 hour journey with a patient in a critical condition.

The other expectant mother came to us with a complication and already in her labour and required an immediate operation in that she had to be referred. She was alrady at 7cm and in too much pain but they decided to use a motorcycle too,which is not a safe means of transport to these mothers.

Such situations put mothers at risk and this  shows need to improve on our transportation services in order to save lives of these mothers which can be achieved when we work together to raise money so that we have an ambulance at our facility for our patients since we have seen this as one of the urgent needs to improve health care and services in our community.