Amama has lived in a rural area of northern Ghana all her life. In 2022, she went into labor along with her first little one. Ladies within the area historically give beginning at residence with the assistance of an area birthing attendant, however Amama skilled last-minute problems, and the choice was made to go to a hospital. Sadly, there have been no ambulances locally and the closest hospital was half-hour away, so Amama was compelled to take a bike taxi, leaving her husband and caregiver behind.
Amama spent the subsequent half-hour touring over bumpy grime roads to get to the hospital. She was in ache and afraid. When she arrived, she realized her little one had not survived.
Sadly, Amama’s story shouldn’t be distinctive. All over the world, greater than 700 ladies die day-after-day attributable to preventable being pregnant and childbirth problems. A scarcity of transportation to hospitals contributes to these deaths.
Shifting Well being was based by MIT college students to present individuals like Amama a safer option to get to the hospital. The corporate, which was began as a part of a category at MIT D-Lab, works with native communities in rural Ghana to supply a community of motorized tricycle ambulances to communities that lack emergency transportation choices.
The regionally made ambulances are designed for the difficult terrain of rural Ghana, geared up with medical provides, and have area for caregivers and members of the family.
“We’re offering the primary rural-focused emergency transportation community,” says Shifting Well being CEO and co-founder Emily Younger ’18. “We’re attempting to supply emergency transportation protection for much less price and with a automobile tailor-made to native wants. After we first began, a report estimated there have been 55 ambulances within the nation of over 30 million individuals. Now, there may be extra protection, however nonetheless the final mile areas of the nation shouldn’t have entry to dependable emergency transportation.”
In the present day, Shifting Well being’s ambulances and emergency transportation community cowl greater than 100,000 individuals in northern Ghana who beforehand lacked dependable medical transportation.
A kind of individuals is Amama. Throughout her most up-to-date being pregnant, she was in a position to take a Shifting Well being ambulance to the hospital. This time, she traveled in a sanitary setting geared up with medical provides and surrounded by family members. When she arrived, she gave beginning to wholesome twins.
From class undertaking to firm
Younger and Sade Nabahe ’17, SM ’21 met whereas taking Course 2.722J (D-Lab: Design), which challenges college students to suppose like engineering consultants on worldwide initiatives. Their group labored on methods to move pregnant ladies in distant areas of Tanzania to hospitals extra safely and shortly. Younger credit D-Lab teacher Matt McCambridge with serving to college students discover the undertaking exterior of sophistication. Fellow Shifting Well being co-founder Eva Boal ’18 joined the hassle the next yr.
The early concept was to construct a trailer that might connect to any bike and be used to move ladies. Following the early class initiatives, the scholars obtained funding from MIT’s PKG Middle and the MIT Undergraduate Giving Marketing campaign, which they used to journey to Tanzania within the following yr’s Impartial Actions Interval (IAP). That’s once they constructed their first prototype within the area.
The founders realized they wanted to raised perceive the issue from the attitude of locals and interviewed over 250 pregnant ladies, clinicians, bike drivers, and beginning attendants.
“We needed to verify the group was main the cost to design what this answer needs to be. We needed to study extra from the group about why emergency transportation doesn’t work in these areas,” Younger says. “We ended up redesigning our automobile utterly.”
Following their commencement from MIT in 2018, the founders purchased one-way tickets to Tanzania and deployed a brand new prototype. A giant a part of their plans was making a product that might be manufactured by the group to help the native financial system.
Nabahe and Boal left the corporate in 2020, however phrase unfold of Shifting Well being’s mission, and Younger obtained messages from organizations in about 15 completely different nations inquisitive about increasing the corporate’s trials.
Younger discovered probably the most alignment in Ghana, the place she met two native engineers, Ambra Jiberu and Sufiyanu Imoro, who had been constructing vehicles from scratch and inventing modern agricultural applied sciences. With these two engineers becoming a member of the staff, she was assured that they had the staff to construct an answer in Ghana.
Taking what they’d realized in Tanzania, the brand new staff arrange a whole bunch of interviews and focus teams to grasp the Ghanaian well being system. The staff redesigned their product to be a completely motorized tricycle primarily based on the most typical mode of transportation in northern Ghana. In the present day Shifting Well being focuses solely on Ghana, with native manufacturing and day-to-day operations led by Nation Director and CTO Isaac Quansah.
Shifting Well being is targeted on constructing a holistic emergency transportation community. To do that, Shifting Well being’s staff units up community-run dispatch techniques, which includes organizing emergency telephone numbers, coaching group well being employees, dispatchers, and drivers, and integrating all of that inside the current well being care system. The corporate additionally conducts academic campaigns within the communities it serves.
Shifting Well being formally launched its ambulances in 2023. The ambulance has an enclosed area for sufferers, members of the family, and medical suppliers and features a detachable stretcher together with provides like first support gear, oxygen, IVs, and extra. It prices about one-tenth the value of a standard ambulance.
“We’ve constructed a extremely cool, small-volume manufacturing facility, led by our native engineering staff, that has unimaginable high quality,” Younger says. “We even have an apprenticeship program that our two lead engineers run that enables younger individuals to study extra exhausting abilities. We need to be sure that we’re offering financial alternatives in these communities. It’s very a lot a Ghanaian-made answer.”
In contrast to the nationwide ambulances, Shifting Well being’s ambulances are stationed in rural communities, at group well being facilities, to allow sooner response instances.
“When the ambulances are stationed in these individuals’s communities, at their native well being facilities, it makes all of the distinction,” Younger says. “We’re attempting to create an emergency transportation answer that’s not solely geared towards rural areas, but in addition targeted on being pregnant and prioritizing ladies’s voices about what really works in these areas.”
A lifeline for moms
When Younger first received to Ghana, she met Sahada, an area lady who shared the story of her first beginning on the age of 18. Sahada had supposed to present beginning in her group with the assistance of an area birthing attendant, however she started experiencing a lot ache throughout labor the attendant suggested her to go to the closest hospital. With no ambulances or automobiles on the town, Sahada’s husband referred to as a bike driver, who took her alone on the three-hour drive to the closest hospital.
“It was wet, extraordinarily muddy, and she or he was in a number of ache,” Younger recounts. “She was already actually apprehensive for her child, after which the bike slips they usually crash. They get again on, lined in mud, she has no concept if the child survived, and eventually will get to the maternity ward.”
Sahada was in a position to give beginning to a wholesome child boy, however her story caught with Younger.
“The expertise was extraordinarily traumatic, and what’s actually loopy is that counts as a profitable beginning statistic,” Younger says. “We hear that form of story so much.”
This yr, Shifting Well being plans to broaden into a brand new area of northern Ghana. The staff can be exploring different methods their community can present well being care to rural areas. However irrespective of how the corporate evolves, the staff stay grateful to have seen their D-Lab undertaking flip into such an impactful answer.
“Our long-term imaginative and prescient is to show that this will work on a nationwide degree and complement the present well being system,” Younger says. “Then we’re excited to discover cell well being care outreach and different transportation options. We’ve all the time been targeted on maternal well being, however we’re staying cognizant of different group concepts that may be capable of assist enhance well being care extra broadly.”
