Mercy outreach staff rescue woman from postpartum hemorrhaging

Mohamed Khadar and Ismael Vandy, members of Mercy Hospital's outreach team, were on a community mapping exercise to understand the needs in some of the villages reached by Mercy when they intervened to save the life of a woman who had just given birth to a stillborn baby.  

The woman had given birth in her village and was walking the four miles to Kassama to seek medical treatment at the Maternal Child Health Post (MCHP).  As she was walking, the woman began hemorrhaging and sought shelter in a hut by the side of the road.  When Mohamed and Ismael encountered her, she was lying in a pool of blood and quickly losing consciousness. Mohamed immediately began treatment to stop the uterine bleeding and sent for help, which certainly saved the woman's life.  

This story is far from typical for women giving birth in villages without MCHPs.  The Sierra Leone government mandates that each village should be within four miles of a MCHP where women can seek treatment for themselves and their babies; but four miles is nearly an impossible distance to walk for a woman who has just given birth, let alone a woman who has had a complicated birth.  

Thanks to Mohamed and Ismael's intervention, this woman survived.  Clearly, there is a desperate need for more MCHPs in the villages served by Mercy's outreach teams.