In November 2014, we arrived in Tanzania to launch the Ifakara Health Institute’s (IHI) Maternal Health intervention. The LifeWrap and mobile phones will be distributed across 8 rural districts and 278 health facilities.
For the first level of training all Referral Facility staff were trained to use the LifeWrap. The trainers included Suellen Miller and Michelle Skaer from UCSF’s Safe Motherhood Program, Rhoda Amafumba (consultant midwife from Zambia), and IHI staff, Seleman Mbuyuti, Robert Tilya, Iddajovana Kinyonge, Godfrey Mburuka, Ritha Godfrey, and Zac Mtema.
The first woman was saved by the LifeWrap just days after the introduction.
As the Ifakara training team was still on the road, heading home from training and equipping the sites, they received a phone call from a newly trained hospital. Seleman Mbuyita, the team leader reported:
“A woman’s life has been saved. Kahama hospital received a referral case of a woman from the health center with placenta previa who had turned paper white but LifeWrap came to rescue! The woman rests in post op ward in a sound condition. What can be more rewarding than this. I was feeling very exhausted but suddenly I am rejuvenated!”
