Motorbike ambulances help deliver

Apr 16 - Motorbike ambulances, with sidecars and padded beds, transport pregnant women to hospital for free in remote parts of Southern Sudan in effort to end maternal mortality.

Five motorbike ambulances are being trialed in Southern Sudan's Eastern Equatoria region, where dusty roads are often flooded in rainy season, blocking access to villages for heavy vehicles.

The bikes can find alternate routes and speedily get to women about to give birth to carry them to the nearest hospital, sometimes 24 kilometers (15 miles) away.

Southern Sudan's infrastructure and public services crumbled during decades of a north-south civil war that ended in 2005.

The U.N. says only 10 percent of all deliveries in Southern Sudan are assisted by skilled health workers and due to lack of adequate transport, the relatively few patients brought into health centers from remote villages, arrive on stretchers.

The new ambulance service is free to pregnant women. Over 90 percent of the people in Southern Sudan live on less than USD$1 per day.

The motorbike ambulances were donated by UNICEF and cost USD$6,000 each. If successful, the new ambulances will be deployed to other parts of the country.

SOUNDBITE (English) PETER CROWLEY, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS IN SOUTH SUDAN, UNICEF:

(SOUNDBITE) (English) JOYCE MPHAYA, HEALTH SPECIALIST, UNICEF: "That will help in terms of reducing maternal mortality because mothers will be able to access the services in good time, and it is going to reach mothers from home to the facilities in places where the roads are not accessible by ambulances."