The mobile ‘m-mama’ service that provides emergency transport for pregnant and postpartum women will now be scaled up to cover more than 50 per cent of the national population across 15 regions.
Starting from 2022, the expanded m-mama programme in Tanzania is expected to transport more than 300,000 women, empower more than 1,400 community transport drivers and could save more than 9,000 lives.
Launched in 2013, m-mama is a tailor-made service offering emergency transport to assist pregnant and postpartum women during medical emergencies including obstruction labour, in addition to neonatal patients who need to get to a hospital or treatment centre.
The m-mama solution has already contributed to a reduction of 38 per cent in maternal deaths and 45 per cent in perinatal deaths in the Shinyanga region alone, supporting the Tanzanian government’s strategy to tackle maternal and newborn mortality in the country.
The programme was co-created by Vodacom Tanzania Foundation, Vodafone Foundation and the Government of Tanzania and was successfully piloted in 6 Tanzanian districts including Shinyanga and Sengerema.
“This simple platform has enabled over 12,000 women and babies in one region to access emergency medical care. Over 200 community drivers have enabled this urgent transport for moments when an ambulance is not immediately available. Now with the support of the Tanzanian government, the m-mama programme will be integrated as a government-backed service, supplementing the ambulance service that will provide much-needed emergency transport for more than half of the population of the country. Our ambition in time is to expand this platform further to other countries where a simple community driver system platform supplementing the ambulance service can save lives,” said Andrew Dunnett, Vodafone Foundation Director.
The m-mama system uses a centralised ‘Dispatch and Control’ system for managing emergency transportation, optimising the use of government ambulances supplemented with community drivers. m-mama is built on simple, robust technology that can be practically used in rural and semi-rural settings.
In the pilot phase, which ran from 2013 to 2022, the programme reached over 10,455 women and 2,200 new-borns with over 200 drivers registered and trained as community taxis.
With full government endorsement, both Foundations have committed to invest $10m USD over six years to roll out the programme, guided by a steering committee from Tanzania’s Ministry of Health and public health delivery agency PO-RALG. Over the next six years, the government will increase its funding and the programme will be fully integrated into the healthcare system by 2027.
“At Vodacom, our purpose is to build better futures and create productive societies. Core to this is the belief that technology must help bridge divides and improve equitable access to services. We believe that technology coupled with the country’s enabling environment and political will has the potential to support African nations to realise transformation in healthcare, agriculture, education, financial services and other priority sectors,” said Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub at an event to launch the new programme.
“Too many pregnant women, women in childbirth and newborns die each year from largely preventable causes. For nine years, we have been working with the Government to develop a practical, sustainable and scalable solution to reduce maternal and newborn deaths in the country. We have built a system that strengthens health care delivery and connects the community and lower-level health facilities to responsive emergency transport,” said Vodacom Tanzania’s Managing Director, Sitholizwe Mdlalose.