"In South Sudan, mortality rates are already high, due to warfare, disease, and malnutrition. But for pregnant women, the odds are much worse—according to UNICEF, a woman from South Sudan has a one-in-six chance of dying during pregnancy or delivery.

Though the region suffers from a scarcity of medical resources, lack of emergency transport is an even more compelling problem.

“We have in our budget this year at least one ambulance per county, but even that one ambulance will not be enough,” Atem Nathan Riek, the area’s director-general of primary healthcare, told IRIN. Southern Sudan also has notoriously awful roads, which can become completely impassable for major vehicles during certain times of the year.

But the government may have come up with a solution to save thousands of women, employing motorcycles with “ambulance” sidecar beds to deliver women in labor and critically ill patients to emergency facilities. UNICEF has donated five motorcycles at a cost of $6,000 each for an initial pilot program, and if the initial experiment is successful, the organization has pledged to supply enough motorcycles for the entire country.

"The advantage of the motorbikes is that they can easily be managed at a lower level health facility," said Joyce Mphaya, a safe motherhood specialist with UNICEF. "It is cost-effective in terms of fuel and you can easily move with the motorbikes to remote places, where there are no roads or where cars cannot go."

In Malawi, where such motorcycles are already in use, the program has more than halved the mortality rate for pregnant women. Sudanese women are hopeful that the program will give them a better chance of surviving to see their infant babies’ faces for the first time.

"Life for a woman here is very hard," said Mary Emmanuel, a Sudanese mother who gave birth three times without medical assistance. "The clinic was too far to get to, so perhaps these motorbikes could help change that."

By Kathryn Hawkins. Via: razoo