Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation. A few years ago, I helped a mother deliver her third baby at a government clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her admission card noted that she was HIV positive – something she had discovered during her first …
Jane Otai, a 2013 New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, says that it is good that the Kenyan government will now provide free maternity health care for all its citizens, however it is also imperative to ensure that free care equals quality care. The New York Times recently reported on the astonishingly high cost …
UNDERFUNDED FACILITIES AND CULTURAL TABOOS MEAN THAT GIVING BIRTH CAN BE A DEADLY GAME OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE FOR WOMEN IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: One midnight, in the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 26-year-old Anna was brought into the labour ward on a stretcher. …
INTERVIEW By Bradley Parks Kenya's infant mortality shows the fastest rate of decline among the 20 countries in sub-Sahara Africa, according to the World Bank. Among the possible reasons for this decline are the efforts of public health workers like Aspen Institute's 2013 New Voices Fellow Jane Otai, and targeted new public health projects such …
I come from the slums of Nairobi, where delaying motherhood is not always a choice. I was lucky to have this option, and choosing to hold off on becoming a mother was my way of stepping out of poverty and getting an education. The question of when to have children is a luxury in much …