Social Business Profile: Saving 9 – the first aid pioneers in Pakistan

Morehouse School of Medicine is training local women to become doulas through its Perinatal Patient Navigators program. A dozen participants — all Black women — recently graduated from the program after five months of training, ready to provide care and support to other women of color in rural communities. Studies show the presence of a doula improves labor and delivery outcomes, reduces stress and results in fewer expensive childbirth interventions, like C-sections.

The Montana Interfacility Blood Network allows ambulance crews to pick up blood from area hospitals to transfuse to patients on the way to get the advanced care they need to prevent death or permanent brain injury en route to the emergency room. The Network is primarily for rural patients who face elevated rates of traumatic injury and have less access to healthcare. Since launching in 2022, the Network has helped three patients.

In 2020, Nigeria's Rural Electrification Agency installed a 50-kilowatt solar-hybrid system at Gombe State Specialist Hospital, providing uninterrupted electricity to critical units, including the ICU and emergency departments. Since its installation, maternal mortality dropped from 15-20 deaths monthly to 1-2 per month, and neonatal deaths also decreased from 50 to 20-25 monthly. The system has also helped healthcare workers perform life-saving surgeries without interruption, as these surgeries were often delayed or impossible due to power outages.

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing's Mental Health First Aid for Rural Communities trains local residents to recognize mental health warning signs and provide critical support until professional help arrives. The program equips non-medical community members with skills to spot crises, have supportive conversations, and navigate people to appropriate resources. In central New York alone, more than 6,000 people have been trained across 10 rural counties, providing life-saving interventions, particularly in areas where emergency services are hard to access.

Village Health Teams are groups of community health workers helping rural women access family planning services. They travel from home to home offering counseling, education and connection to the resources women need but struggle to access, including condoms and pills, often all without having to visit a health facility. VHTs have reached several thousand residents, both with short and long-term contraceptive methods.

Jacquelyn Alvarado, a certified nurse midwife with the Texas A&M Rural and Community Health Institute, travels across Texas to teach rural hospital staff how to deliver babies. Using a mannequin, she runs simulations covering both routine and complicated deliveries for ER nurses, paramedics, and other non-obstetrical staff who may be the only help available when a rural patient goes into labor.

The Bauchi State Impact Project aims to improve maternal and newborn health by training 100 people to become skilled birth attendants. Despite infrastructure challenges, the Project not only provides work and purpose to those trained, but also helps make childbirth safer by providing much-needed care.

Komfot Health operates a technology-driven network providing post-abortion care and sexual reproductive health services across Nigeria. The organization trains healthcare providers to address biases, uses a chatbot system for patient triage and connects women to verified medical facilities in six states, acting as intermediaries between women seeking care and trusted healthcare providers. Since launching in 2024, Komfot Health has served over 1,790 women.

In an effort to address maternal mortality rates and overall maternal health conditions, groups of midwives are hosting community dialogue sessions that serve as educational opportunities for preventing danger. Maternal and infant mortality rates have already begun to decrease, and midwives also provide support beyond education, giving mothers food and other supplies as needed.

Women volunteers with PHC Kara are going into the community to share important healthcare information with pregnant women, in an effort to improve maternal and infant mortality rates and health outcomes. The group has also received support and recognition from UNICEF’S Mama2Mama healthcare initiative and Rural Health Mission Nigeria, providing them with clean birth kits and other supplies to distribute to women.