Stimulating policy debate on blood transfusion services through the work of an emergency obstetric care project in Nepal

Abstract

Following this a task force was commissioned to develop a legal policy framework to ensure standardized quality blood services with defined management and monitoring roles and responsibilities.

Strengthening emergency obstetric care in Nepal: The Women's Right to Life and Health Project (WRLHP)

“…In addition to the project described here the Maternal and Neonatal Health Program supported by USAID mainly addressed policy issues such as a national training strategy and a communications strategy; birth preparedness package and advocacy messages for increasing utilization of maternal health services; and training sites for EmOC. The Nepal Safer Motherhood project is supported by DFID and has been described elsewhere [7,8].…”

“…Nepal's National Safe Motherhood Program Plan (2002–2017) now works in 13 out of 75 districts, accounting for 20% of the country's total population. UNICEF's Women's Right to Life and Health Project (WRLHP) supports 4 of these 13 districts, while 9 are supported by the Nepal Safer Motherhood Project (NSMP) with funding from the Department for International Development (DFID) [7,8]. These two projects have worked in close partnership to raise the profile of EmOC in the national program as the key intervention for reducing maternal mortality.…”

Improving Emergency Obstetric Care in a Context of Very High Maternal Mortality: The Nepal Safer Motherhood Project 1997–2004

“…Five hospitals were successfully upgraded to be comprehensive facilities and seven to basic level and the capacity of participating health facilities to respond to and resolve obstetrical complications opportunely increased appreciably. Project interventions improved the skills of different types of health care providers in the facilities, 11 strengthened infection control, 16 blood banks 17 and procurement systems, with resultant benefits not just for maternity care but wider acute health care provision. When the Project identified a lack of anaesthetic services, it addressed this by training nurses and auxiliary nurse-midwives as anaesthetic assistants.…”

“…Project districts were located in the poorer regions of the mid-and far west regions of the country. This paper draws upon extensive project documentation: seven internal evaluations and activity-to-output reviews, ten external evaluations and studies of key project components [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] as well as research studies commissioned during the Project, 1,13 other published papers, [14][15][16][17] and a project evaluation synthesis report. 18 …”

Editor's comment

“…The second paper in this month's Keystone Section is by the Nepal Safer Motherhood Project (NSMP) team and addresses the barriers to achieving functioning blood transfusion services for obstetric emergencies [3]. But its significance is wider than that.…”