Since the launch of Touch Foundation’s EWEC commitment in October 2017, the M-Mama program in Tanzania, formerly known as Mobilizing Maternal Health, has made significant progress in reaching our programmatic and commitment goals. These goals are related to expanding access to an emergency transportation system (EmTS) for pregnant women and newborns, strengthening the health system with healthcare worker training and infrastructure improvements, and planning for sustainability. Ultimately, we aim to reduce the high rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in the Lake Zone of Tanzania. The central component of M Mama is the emergency transport system to address complications as quickly and effectively as possible, recognizing that many fatal pregnancy-related and neonatal complications are difficult to predict. This innovative transport solution uses digital technology to triage a patient remotely 24/7 and then dispatch an ambulance or community driver with a vehicle to bring the patient to the appropriate health facility for care.
In this reporting period, we continued discussions with partners on the sustainable expansion plan for the M-Mama program and implemented the EmTs into 5 additional districts. We established 2 new dispatch centers and trained additional dispatchers, held orientation meetings with health facility staff as well as taxi and ambulance drivers, and conducted supportive supervision visits to health facilities and dispatch centers. We also worked with our partners to further develop the government payment process for community drivers. By the end of 2019, the majority of governments in active districts had committed to taking on 50% of taxi driver payments and we are working with them to ensure sustained local ownership.
In 2019, the EmTS transported 2303 women with pregnancy-related emergencies and 450 newborns in our areas of operation. The EmTS is not only providing emergency transportation to mothers and newborns, but it is also improving their health outcomes by bringing them to facilities where they can be seen by skilled birth attendants. Combined, these two factors dramatically increase survival.
We have expanded the impact of this maternal and newborn health work by integrating it with other non-communicable disease services. Working alongside our resource partners, the government, and health facility partners, we are ensuring women have greater access to cardiovascular disease screening and care to diagnose and manage any potential complications such as pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. In 2019, our program trained over 100 healthcare workers and screened over 10,000 pregnant and post-partem women for hypertension.
For the sustainable expansion of M-Mama, we continue to improve M&E and the digital technology supporting the EmTS based on feedback from users and lessons from implementation. We remain focused on increasing the number of women and newborns served by the M-Mama program in order to decrease maternal and neonatal mortality rates in the Lake Zone. Excitingly, we expanded our M-Mama program into Lesotho in 2019 and are thus working to improve maternal health there as well.
