Save Mothers in Nepal - phase 2

Terhathum, Nepal. "Shirisha is 23 years old. She is the mother of a two year old, Bishal, and she is about to deliver her second baby on the floor of her thatched-roof house. The closest birthing center is 2 hrs away through the mountains. Thankfully, she has a skilled birthing attendant available to help deliver her baby. She delivers a healthy baby girl. But Shirisha isn’t so lucky. She is continuing to bleed and she has not delivered her placenta. Her skilled birthing attendant knows which medication might help her and the government of Nepal supplies this medication for free. So there should be no problem, right? Wrong. Shirisha’s birthing attendant ran out of the needed medication and is still waiting for the district warehouse to send her the supply. There is plenty of medication at the warehouse, but Shirisha’s birthing attendant doesn’t have it when she needs it, making it useless. She is left with few alternatives to save Shirisha. Village elders recommend traditional treatment which is using a garden hoe to get the placenta out" 

Shirsha’s story is the reality for most women living in the remote regions of Nepal. A 2014 study showed that lifesaving medications are only available 35% of the time when community health workers need them. Phase 1 of our project worked on modernizing the medication requisition process. By distributing mobile phones to community health workers, we have transformed the supply-chain of essential drugs - into a real-time text-based restock request. Our pilot in the Terhathum district of Nepal, has been a thrilling success. Your generous donations helped us get this project off the ground, but we are not done, yet. We would like to scale up this project to other similar districts which are suffering in Nepal and also to work on the delivery side of these medications. Because our project is being supported by Dartmouth, One Heart World-Wide, and IHI, every donated dollar will go directly to the cause. So far we have raised $10,000 and need $15,000 more in the next nine months to do our part in saving both moms and newborns in remote rural districts in Nepal.
Meanwhile, Shirisha made it to the health center 5 hours away. Luckily she is still alive having lost half her blood volume. This could have been so easily prevented by using text messages.