Located just north of the equator, nestled deep in the Rwenzori Mountains of western Uganda, is Bwera General Hospital. Bwera is a public hospital administered by the Uganda Ministry of Health. Here, in one of the poorest but most spectacularly beautiful places on earth, extremes abound. The ratio of doctors to patients is just 1:100,000. Paved roads are few and far between. Electricity is a luxury enjoyed by only a few. But almost everyone, in even the tiniest and most remote villages, owns a cellphone. And cellphone towers are ubiquitous, marching across the landscape in every direction.
Pregnant women are often forced to walk 30 to 50 miles through the densely forested mountains to see a doctor. But today, that situation is changing rapidly because of the tools developed by Medic Mobile to help front-line health workers. A simple cellphone operates on a 2G cellular network and holds an easy-to-use app developed by Medic Mobile that allows workers to register and track the progress of any pregnancy, communicate about prenatal care and visits to the Bwera Hospital, and monitor the birth outcome.
Instead of having to walk the 35 miles to Bwera Hospital to deliver the information they collect, healthcare workers can use the Medic Mobile app to send a text message, in real time, to the hospital staff.
Before Medic Mobile entered the picture, only 28 percent of Ugandan women had prenatal care. In just a few years, that figure has risen to 48 percent and continues to rise. Women are consistently delivering healthy babies and are far less likely to lose a child or suffer potentially life-threatening complications.
See the story of Kikanda Batelemao, a healthcare worker for Bwera General Hospital, and his experience using the Medic Mobile app to support expectant mother Florence Mbambu during her pregnancy and through to the safe delivery of her child here – http://www.vmware.com/radius/impact/medic-mobile-health-workers/#sthash.gDmEsFWG.dpuf