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When Zambia’s first lady Maureen Mwanawasa came to Boston for the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board Meeting last November, BWH’s Thomas Burke, MD, associate clinical director of Emergency Medicine, jumped at the opportunity to meet her. This began a 10-year project to reduce maternal and infant mortality in Zambia, where at least 800 out of 100,000 deliveries result in maternal death, and 20 percent of children die by age 5.
The Maternal/Infant Millenium Initiative will educate Zambian midwives through an advanced training curriculum and eventually establish and staff birthing centers throughout Zambia. The program was developed by BWHers Burke, Stephen Bohan, MD, MS, Jennifer Millen, MD, Regan Marsh, MD, Paula Johnson, MD, MPH, Hilarie Cranmer, MD, MPH, Michael Vanrooyen, MD, MPH, and Sharlene Bagga. Lynda Tyer-Viola, PhD, RN, Obstetrics Nursing Service at MGH, and members of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative are also instrumental in ensuring the project’s success.
Dr. Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika, ambassador of Zambia, expressed her appreciation in a recent letter. “The plans are great and will save lives,” she wrote. “The world will be a better place.”
Burke and Bohan traveled in March to Kabwe, Zambia, to gain a first-hand look at local needs. “We must first understand the needs of the Zambian people and work to ensure the solution is locally understood and accepted,” Burke said.
Following their visit, they decided it was critical to focus on educating midwives on up-to-date birthing procedures. “Midwives are crucial to the success of this program,” Burke said. “They are and will be the ones at the bedside helping mothers and newborns through the birthing process.”
An advanced training program for midwives at Kabwe General Hospital begins in September 2007. Classes will address the causes of maternal and infant death, and nurses will learn to integrate local culture and birthing traditions with Westernized medicine to ensure Zambians continue practices that ultimately will reduce the maternal and infant death toll.
“This training is exciting for everyone,” said Sharlene Bagga, Deland Fellow in Administration, who is involved in developing the initiative’s strategic plan. “It involves experts from many fields, all of whom are commited to improving health care in Zambia.”
BWHers are taking turns traveling to Zambia and collecting information at rural sites, interacting with Zambian medical professionals and addressing the educational and practical needs of the community.