Monaco Princely Government

The Project

Direct beneficiaries: pregnant women from the region of Thyolo (120.000 inhabitants).
Indirect beneficiaries: the families of the women who are pregnant who will be taken care off in this hospital.
General objective: contribute to the reduction to the rate of maternal mortality in the region of Thyolo.
Specific objectives:
- Reinforce the access for women to services of medical health and neonatal help in the district of Thyolo.
- As a greater result, the maternal mortality rate will be reduced.

Benefit of building a women's waiting home shelter at Bvumbwe - Thyolo District

Thyolo District has a population of about 600.000 people and has 1 district hospital, 28 primary health centres - of which Bvumbwe is the largest one.

Bvumbwe trading centre has a population of 120,000 people. It is located on the main road from Blantyre going to Mulanje (25 kms from Blantyre). Bvumbwe residents are mostly employed by tea estates as casual labourers.

Some of the problems being faced in Bvumbwe are:

HIV prevalence rate of 15% - high TB rates amongst HIV patients.
Understaffing in health centres.
Low staff morale due to meager salaries for health care workers.
100-1500 health care workers per 100.000 people for Thyolo district.
Long distances to the nearest health facility.
Two thirds of Thyolo population are under 25 years old.
Women in Thyolo have an average of 5 children in their lifetime.
1 in 4 women ages 15-19 have begun child bearing.
1 in 6 women give birth at home.
1 in 6 deaths of women 15 to 49 years old are due to maternal-related complications.
Complications from unsafe abortion rates amongst teenagers - 30 every month.

The shelter will be KEY to reducing/stopping some of the bad statistics above - such as maternal related complications and deaths; not giving birth at home and improving safe motherhood at Bvumbwe and Thyolo Dristict in general!

The Objective of the Project is to achieve rapid and sustainable improvements in Malawi's maternal death indicators in Thyolo District by investing in infrastructure - a 24 bed waiting home shelter! Maternal mortality rate in Malawi is 1 in 36 women.

“The problem with maternal mortality is generally that the woman doesn’t have access to proper emergency obstetric care, is unable to reach the facility in time, or once she reaches the facility, there is limited capacity to deal with the problem,” said UNC Project-Malawi doctor Jeff Wilkinson, MD, associate professor of gynecology at UNC and leader of the project. “So the idea of a maternity waiting home is that a woman who lives remote from a health care facility or is deemed to be high-risk in pregnancy will come to the home early and either await onset of labor or in some cases be scheduled for an elective Cesarean delivery, if needed.” [Source: UNC]

Bvumbwe health center serves at least 10.000 women in the 15-49 age group.