Intervention-based approach to reducing Child and Maternal Mortality in The Gambia

The Gambia ranks among Africa's top ten countries with high maternal mortality rates (UN, 2017). There has been significant progress in the maternal mortality reduction rate in recent years due to the participation of different national and international organizations; however, the mortality rate is still significantly high. Based on a needs assessment by the Baylor Global Health Department at Baylor College of Medicine, most of it can be attributed to poor infrastructure and medical training among the staff. Thus, this summer, with poor medical training as our exposure variable and high maternal mortality rate as our outcome variable, we developed an Anesthesia and Obstetrics training program that we will deploy starting Fall 2023 in Kaniffing General Hospital (KGH) in the Gambia.

The training program consists of crucial medical chapters such as physiological and psychological changes in pregnancy, obstetric complications, maternal cardiac arrest, failed intubation, maternal hemorrhage, anemia, hypotension, nerve blocks, and local and regional anesthesia. The medical staff will take the pre-unit quiz before taking the training and the post-unit quiz after the training. Eventually, they will be assessed on their overall score at the end of the program.

The effectiveness of the program will be assessed after its successful implementation. The current mortality rate at KGH will be compared to the mortality rate after the program deployment. Furthermore, the sustainability plans are already in place based on outcome evaluation.