Seven Years ago, Mercy Hospital teamed up with Dareda Catholic Hospital nestled in a small village located in Tanzania. Global Health Initiatives funds the project and initiated Helping Babies Breathe and Helping Mothers Survive curriculum which provides training for rural health workers and nursing students with skills in couplet care, prevention, detection, and management of the leading causes of maternal and fetal deaths including resuscitation, bleeding after birth and pre-eclampsia & eclampsia. Tanzania is ranked 22nd in the world for infant mortality 37/1000 and 13th in Maternal mortality 524/100,000. Thanks to the first of the couplet program, Helping Babies Breathe, 123 of 127 newborns resuscitated from July 2021 to March 2022 survived. This will have an incredible impact on families, especially on children who otherwise would grow up without a mother. These children's lives will be impacted in every way imaginable: socially, economically, in terms of educational attainment, and regarding overall physical, mental, and emotional health.
The inaugural Helping Mothers Survive training stemmed from a partnership with the Tanzania Midwives Association (TAMA) which traveled from Dar Es Salaam to Dareda to provide an expansive training of midwives from surrounding areas. GHI grant manager, Rosemary Danaher, worked tirelessly to develop and execute the training program from an ocean away alongside Bethany Bernal.
A team from Durango and IT experts from Denver will be visiting Dareda in September to assess IT needs to begin telehealth initiatives to facilitate patient care, engagement, and training needs for caregivers, clinicians, and patients. For example, a tablet with wireless and cellular connectivity is used to train the trainers in remote or rural parts of the communities served by the Dareda hospital in support of the HMS program. Mercy Hospital will also purchase needed lab equipment for immediate results ensuring high quality care and initiating interventions timely. A hospital ambulance is something we all take for granted in the US and our hope is we will be able to meet that need of our Dareda Partners as well! Partnering with Dareda has been part of Mercy's mission for over a decade and we look to help set the stage for years to come.
“The [Helping Mothers Survive] program came at the right time when needed most, reminding all the midwives how to use their eyes to see and ears to listen to a pregnant woman’s concern in labor so as to recognize early signs of shock and to take appropriate measures at the right time,” said one of the TAMA partners.
A Rio Rapids Girls team donated soccer balls for our last site visit and we are hoping to brighten the days and lives of these beautiful children once again! Thank you for your generous donation. A little goes a LONG way in Tanzania!
