WaterAid: the Deliver Life appeal

WaterAid’s most recent appeal, Deliver Life, launched in November and raised awareness of the impact a lack of safe water, decent toilets and a hygienic environment in which to give birth has on mums and their families around the world.

WaterAid is working to bring safe water closer to home for pregnant women and new mums so they no longer have to carry water for long distances. Healthcare facilities need to have access to clean water, adequate toilets and be committed to good hygiene practice and promotion. To achieve this and help reach everyone everywhere by 2030, WaterAid is working with national governments to ensure that water, sanitation and hygiene services are considered in all health facility plans, so more newborn babies and their mothers survive and thrive.

• 42% of healthcare facilities in Africa do not have access to safe water (WHO/UNICEF, 2015). 
• Sepsis accounts for 11% of maternal deaths around the world. This could be prevented with a safe, adequate water supply and good hygiene.

Throughout the Deliver Life appeal, WaterAid followed the progress of Kiomboi hospital in rural Tanzania where more than 7,000 women give birth each year.

We met Agnes Noti, 22, in June 2015, waiting to give birth to her third child in the labour ward of the hospital. She sat in one of three rooms allocated for ante-natal and post-natal care – two of which had bunk beds to accommodate the heavily pregnant women or new mums. The sink the mothers used to wash was the same sink used to wash medical equipment and dispose of waste from the labour ward. Agnes remembers people using water from the river during her last birth. The water was white.

Kiomboi hospital had running water for just one hour a day. For midwives like Daniel Paulo, working without this essential resource often meant making impossible choices – like deciding whether to leave the hospital in search of water, or help mums in labour without washing their hands between deliveries.

“We fetch water from outside because the taps in the ward don’t work. There are challenges because if there is not water in the taps and you are alone it means you’re not washing your hands and therefore there will be contamination.”

Credit: WaterAid/ Eliza Powell

As WaterAid’s Deliver Life appeal picked up pace in November, work started at Kiomboi Hospital. There were some challenges to face – heavy rains and sub-surface water – but together with local partners, SEMA and the Iramba District Council, WaterAid began work to connect a supply of clean water to the maternity ward, labour room, lab building and theatre room, and to install bathrooms and latrines.

Credit: WaterAid/ Ernest Randriarimalala

Today, work at Kiomboi Hospital is nearing completion, and midwife Daniel has welcomed some very special deliveries: Kiomboi’s first babies born with safe running water:

“The changes at the hospital are so big… We have water to wash clothes, all the patients and all the pregnant women… and their families now have water to use here during their stay at the hospital. These changes really help us to provide good services to our patients. Having running water all the time will help us to reduce infections in children, new-borns and new moms. We will all be healthy.”

Pic credit: WaterAid/ Ernest Randriarimalala

Diana’s baby, Karen, was one of the first babies to be born at the hospital after the taps and toilets were installed and clean water flowed for the first time at Kiomboi.

“Karen is my first baby and I am so happy to get here to give birth in this hospital with running water. I have the feeling that my baby is safe. I am also so happy for my mother, who is taking care of us during our stay here as she no longer has to wash my clothes or my baby’s clothes with dirty water.”

The transformation in Kiomboi hospital would not have been possible without the support of generous individuals and companies around the UK.

Over the past three months, staff from across the water industry have supported the appeal with activities ranging from cake sales, quiz nights and race nights to balls and sporting dinners. Sporting legend Kevin Keegan drew a crowd at the Northumbrian Water sporting dinner, which raised helped to raise essential funds for the appeal.

Money raised through the Deliver Life appeal will help WaterAid provide safe water and sanitation to mums and their families around the world. To find out more about the appeal please visit deliverlife.wateraid.org