First Lady Jeannette Kagame’s call for stronger action against preventable maternal deaths should be treated as an urgent challenge to everyone involved in healthcare delivery.
Rwanda has made remarkable progress in expanding access to primary healthcare. Health centres, health posts and hospitals have been established across the country, bringing essential services closer to communities that previously had to travel long distances for treatment.
Community Health Workers have also played an indispensable role. They educate families, identify pregnant women, encourage antenatal care, monitor vulnerable patients and connect communities with health facilities.
These achievements provide a strong foundation. However, we still register some deaths, albeit at a minimal level compared to years past, yet the solutions to causes of these maternal deaths are already known.
A mother should not lose her life because warning signs were missed, an ambulance arrived late, a referral was poorly coordinated, blood was unavailable or a health facility lacked appropriately trained personnel. Every maternal death must therefore be examined not simply as a statistic, but as a possible failure somewhere along the chain of care.
The next frontier should be using technology to close these gaps.
The National Health Intelligence Centre offers Rwanda an important platform for integrating and analysing real-time information from Community Health Workers, health posts, health centres and hospitals. Such data should be used to identify high-risk pregnancies, monitor referrals, detect shortages and alert decision-makers before preventable complications become fatal.
Technology can also improve communication between mothers, Community Health Workers, ambulances and health facilities. Digital patient records should ensure that critical information follows a patient throughout the referral system. Data analytics can help authorities identify facilities recording unusual numbers of complications or delays and intervene immediately.
However, technology alone will not save lives. It must be supported by skilled personnel, functional equipment, adequate medical supplies and a culture of accountability. Health workers must act quickly when danger signs appear, while facility managers and district authorities must ensure that emergency systems work around the clock.
Maternal healthcare should also remain centred on dignity. Every expectant mother deserves to be listened to, treated respectfully and provided with clear information throughout pregnancy, delivery and postnatal care.
Rwanda has already demonstrated that determined leadership, community participation and innovation can transform healthcare. The same resolve must now be directed towards eliminating preventable maternal deaths.
A mother who enters a health facility to give life should return home alive to raise her child. Any preventable death of a mother giving life is one death too many.