Reaching Out to the People When the People Can't Reach Health Care

At the 2005 World Summit, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders committed themselves to achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015 as an essential element in the fight against poverty. This commitment echoed a similar pledge made at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development.

It’s not an easy promise to deliver.

Half of the world’s people live in rural areas, many of them hours away from the nearest health centre – which can be an eternity for a woman in labour. Conflicts and natural disasters have disrupted health services -- or created barriers to reaching them -- in many countries. In others, economic transition has eroded health infrastructures.

But UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, working closely with its partners, has found innovative approaches to bring reproductive health care to places where the need is greatest. Medical professionals set up tents and pre-fabricated building in hard-hit disaster zones. They travel in teams to impoverished and underserved communities. They arrange health camps to treat women in remote areas. And they train volunteer health workers to act as a conduit to higher levels of care. Find out more about these programmes and the people who benefit from them:

Special Delivery: Volunteers on Bicycles Bring Health Care to Rural Senegal

GAMBEY, Senegal — A large black bag slung over his shoulder, Sillymane Ba pedals his rickety bicycle down a rocky, bumpy, red dirt road. He is heading from the local health centre to his village of Gambey, a community of a few hundred people living in one of Senegal’s poorest rural areas.

UNFPA Mobile Clinic Protects Cairo's Garbage Collectors

AL ZARAYEB, Cairo — Garbage is everywhere in this part of the city. But after a few minutes, the acrid odor begins to subside as one’s nose becomes accustomed to the stench. It’s a good thing, too, because in Al Zarayeb, part of the Manshiyat Nasser slum in Cairo, trash is a treasured source of income. It is hauled into houses, carefully sifted through and then resold.  View Slide Show

Georgia's Mobile Teams Hit the Road to Improve Reproductive Health and Save Lives

TSKALTUBO, Georgia — The former resort community of Tskaltubo is eerily empty. The health spas and hotels that once catered to the Soviet elite stand abandoned and dilapidated. Most people live from hand to mouth on less than $60 per month.  View Slide Show

Checkpoints Compound the Risks of Childbirth for Palestinian Women

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Occupied Territory — After three hours of driving from one checkpoint to another to get to the Ramallah hospital, Fatima's labour pains were becoming unbearable. By the time the taxi reached Aljabá checkpoint, cars were lined up for 150 metres.

Nepal Ceasefire Allows Mobile Team to Care for Women's Health

SAFEBAGAR, Accham District, Nepal —“May you live 100 years! You have given me my life back,” a beaming Guma Badela told the doctor and nurse examining her. She had come to a mobile health clinic for a post-surgery check-up and to express thanks.   View Slide Show

Female Medical Teams in Pakistan Reach More Women and Save More Lives than before the Earthquake

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan — When the earthquake struck on 8 October 2005, Larmirjan’s house collapsed. She was badly injured, and her 18-year-old son was killed. Throughout northern Pakistan, 73,000 died and 3.5 million were left homeless.   View Slide Show

Risking Death to Give Life in Panama's Tropical Forests

CHIRIQUÍ PROVINCE , Panama — Giving birth to her twelfth child in her family’s straw hut in the remote mountains of Western Panama, hours away from medical services, turned deadly for Cristobalina Santos. Her husband, Severino Caballero, recalls how contractions started at about seven o’clock one evening. After Cristobalina had given birth to a healthy baby, she developed an aggressive infection. By three the next morning, she was dead. She was 36 years old.   View Slide Show