Indonesian village midwives assisting pregnant women with complicated births in the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh will be able to dial help next month thanks to an innovative World Vision project.
The ICT4D, or Information Communications Technology for Development Project, is a world first and will enable the midwives to phone a doctor or obstetrician 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whenever they face a challenging delivery.
Indonesia has one of Southeast Asia's highest maternal mortality rates, at 307 deaths per 100,000 live births; a figure that is seven times higher than that of neighbouring Thailand and five times higher than China. The rate of infant mortality during birth in Indonesia is currently 42 per 1,000 live births.
The remote province of Aceh, which was ravaged by the December 2004 tsunami that left 130,000 locals dead and another 570,000 homeless, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Indonesia.
The project involves cooperation between World Vision, Unicef and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in collaboration with the USA's prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Last week, more than 200 Acehnese midwives and local midwife coordinators undertook training in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh to prepare for the launch of the programme in November.
103 midwives were provided with general capacity training to increase their knowledge of difficult deliveries and improve their skills at data collection and they will form part of a "control group". An additional 123 midwives and eight midwife coordinators received the same training as well as special lessons in the use of mobile phones and how to communicate remotely with doctors and obstetricians. The second group will be provided with mobile phones next month and will use them to dial assistance when they face challenging deliveries.
"This is a first for World Vision and a very exciting project with the potential to save lives," World Vision Indonesia Tsunami Response Director David Taylor said.
"We know that there are opportunities to harness technology for development and this is a pilot project which, if successful, could be rolled out in other provinces and countries where World Vision works," he said.
The project is being piloted in Aceh Besar district, which has a population of 321,459 people living in 601 villages spread across 22 sub-districts.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
