Uhurulabs has partnered with Voices of Africa Foundation for a project which will create a new model for a disruptive information, supply, and logistical supply chain in the healthcare system [2]. It will change the way medical care is supplied to rural settings, the relationships between medical providers and suppliers, and create layers of new employment opportunities through local manufacturing and design of previously imported products.
The project seeks to locally manufacture and supply 3D-printed antenatal and birth kits, including newborn resuscitation equipment, to community health workers (CHW’s) and midwives who serve the 52% of Tanzanian women who now deliver at home. The CHW’s and/or midwives can then distribute the toolkits during visits, or they can even be delivered via UAV to the women’s home using previously established GPS coordinates.
By the end of the award, designers will have created working prototypes ready to be manufactured and distributed. The first birthing kit prototypes will be tested in 20 facilities, in outreach with 1000 CHW’s in Dar es Salaam and Shinyanga, where the prevalence is highest, to reach 2,500,000 people [4]. Long term, this project envisions a 3D printer and UAV at every designated district hospital in Tanzania. These hospitals then use the trifecta technologies: tablet apps, 3D printers, and UAVs to stop unnecessary deaths and save millions of dollars in medical waste processing, bypassing stock outages, theft, and corruption.
https://savinglivesatbirth.net/summaries/2017/577