20 January 2016 – Every mother should expect childbirth to be full of positive and joyful memories. But current crises have hampered most pregnant women’s access to delivery rooms in Al-Habanyia tourist city and Al-Khaldia district in Ramadi City. To increase access to services and to provide every mother with the opportunity for a healthy start with her newborn child, Al-Anbar Department of Health, WHO and the United Nations Population Fund have established 2 delivery rooms in these 2 districts. These facilities will provide reproductive health care services to women of childbearing age and will ensure that 5150 internally displaced families n Al-Habanyia tourist city and 12 000 families in Al-Khaldia district have access to such services.
The project’s operational plan includes various stages, the most important part of which was securing all medical supplies for the new delivery rooms, with staff available on a 24/7 basis. Ambulances are available around the clock to refer emergency cases to hospitals and to transfer pregnant women from nearby internally displaced persons (IDP) camps to the delivery rooms.
“We are planning to deploy 5 new caravans in the 2 locations as additional delivery rooms. Because no gynaecologist is currently available in Al-Habanyia tourist city and due to high demand created by the high number of internally displaced families, an additional caravan was deployed to Al-Habanyia delivery room and a gynaecologist was hired to provide the required gynaecological and antenatal consultations to women there.
The establishment of the 2 delivery rooms has had a huge impact and brought a real positive change to reproductive health services in these 2 districts said Altaf Musani, Acting WHO Representative.
The number of consultations (both antenatal and gynaecological) provided from 1 October 2015 until 11 January 2016 were Al-Khaldia (1954) and Al-Habanyia (4765).
The number of deliveries were Al-Khaldia (313) and in Al-Habanyia (74). All births went well with no complications and healthy outcomes for the mother and child.
