Rose Omae, a Kenyan mother who moved to Clifton in 2003, has given birth to three children in a rural village in Kenya and is praising a Department for International Development (DFID) funded scheme, supported by the UK taxpayer, which operates a motorbike-ambulance, fitted with a sidecar, to transport women to their nearest maternity hospital in rural areas.
One penny in every UK tax pound goes towards helping the poorest countries and funds projects such as DFID's Essential Health Services programme, providing pre-natal and postnatal care for mothers and babies in Nyanza Province. A health centre building is currently being refurbished as a maternity wing and is due to open in May.
For pregnant women in Nyanza Province of Kenya, just getting to the hospital can pose huge problems, with many needing to walk for more than an hour while in labour to get medical care at the local hospital.
Rose, (43), who worked as a midwife in Kenya, praises the new ambulance service:
"The quality of basic care is the key. If these facilities can improve on the basic needs then that is a big step, and I welcome the work that is being done to make women's lives easier.
"Midwives also need that basic level of training so that they can assess complications quicker and reduce the risk. I have seen mothers being carried in wheelbarrows, so the motorbike idea is a big improvement."
The 200cc motorbike-ambulance, which is specially built for negotiating rough rural terrain, has a specially constructed padded sidecar, in which a patient can lie down safely strapped in. The motorbike-ambulance collects women from the lakeside villages, meaning mum and baby have a much better chance of survival.
Rose continues:
"The quality of childcare depends on where you live. In the city you will be looked after through private care, but in the village it's a lot more difficult. The community health centre will normally have maternity provision but the quality and circumstances means that survival can be 50-50.
"Mothers travel long distances to get there, and often they are made to wait because of the lack of space. So, rather than travel all the way back, they wait outside, sometimes for up to two weeks. It's good news about the health centre which is due to open inNyanza Province - hopefully this will change things for the better."
To highlight the different experiences of local mothers-to-be and those in Kenya, a new YouGov poll reveals that, whereas mums in the East Midlands are concerned about having their partners present at the birth and losing weight gained during pregnancy, women in Nyanza province worry about their babies surviving in an area where one in five children do not live to see their fifth birthday. Figures also show that 560 women per 100,000 in Kenya (rising to 1,000 in some parts of Kenya's Nyanza province) die during pregnancy, in childbirth or postnatal period. This compares to eight per 100,000 for the UK.
67 per cent of women in the East Midlands were 'very worried' about not getting to the hospital on time, and 43 per cent of those polled in the region said they were concerned about the impact the patter of tiny feet would have on their finances.
Douglas Alexander, International Development Secretary said:
"Women's health is critical to a country's future. When a mother dies in childbirth everyone suffers - her child, her family and her community.
"That's why DFID makes improving maternal health in developing countries such a priority - from training for nurse-midwives, as I saw for myself in Kisumu in Kenya, to funding clinics, ambulances, immunisation programmes and health education."
