Two Masters in Development Practice students, Paloma Ruiz Gonzalez and Marianna Costa Checa, used their MDP practicum this past summer to assist the Millennium Cities Initiative in mapping and surveying all health facilities in the Millennium City of Kisumu, Kenya, at the request of the city government and local health officials.
Maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain high across the Millennium Cities and throughout much of the developing world. All the more reason why we’re excited about the second in a series of ultrasound trainings and screenings in Kumasi, Ghana, led by the London-based International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG), MCI’s partner, which works all over the world to further maternal and child health through the use of this life-saving technology.
The following is a guest blog, authored by Mayuko Hashimoto, a GlaxoSmithKline PULSE volunteer from Tokyo, Japan, who is working with the Millennium Cities Initiative for six months in Kisumu, Kenya to further maternal and neonatal survival.
As a volunteer with GlaxoSmithKline, I’ll be in Kisumu for six months to support the Millennium Cities Initiative in its efforts to help the city become sustainable and improve its social services. My role here is to assess the existing capacity of neonatal and maternal health care services offered through health centres and the outreach efforts of community health workers.
With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit in New York on 20-22 September 2010 to accelerate progress towards the MDGs, aimed at slashing poverty, hunger, disease, maternal and child deaths and other ills. MDG 4 aims for a two-thirds reduction in the mortality of children under-five.
Every year, 10 million babies require help to breathe immediately after birth. Stimulating breathing by drying and rubbing the newborn and suctioning the baby’s mouth may be all that is needed to save a life. Although such life-saving care is readily available in the United States, in many poorer countries, it may be a distant reality [...]
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