Newborn Life Support
On the ground in Mali, we work with Critical Care International (CCI) to bring UK-standard expert healthcare to Yanfolila. In addition to providing ongoing and emergency care to mine employees, CCI also undertakes a number of initiatives to reach the wider community. One such programme surrounds training local healthcare practitioners, and a particularly successful project recently focussed on the crucial issue of newborn childcare.
Mali does not produce positive statistics regarding childbirth and newborn survival rates. In fact, nearly 20% of children are likely to die before their fifth birthday, according research carried out by the World Health Organisation in 2009. With this in mind, we enlisted CCI to carry out a teaching programme among 12 local nurses and midwives to improve their care of newborn babies and use of equipment.
The programme principally focussed on newborn resuscitation and we’re pleased to say that half the attendees reported that they now use the skills they were taught at least once a week to save the life of a baby who they believe would have otherwise died.
For us, the findings suggest that we can work cohesively to bring positive change to the healthcare in the area. They also denote a gap in training that we can strive to further improve upon in the future by reaching more healthcare workers and approaching new topics.