Earlier this month, just before dawn, a free ambulance service in southern Pakistan received an urgent call. A 26-year-old woman from a remote village in Thatta had gone into labor, miles from any health facility.
Within minutes, an SIEHS ambulance, staffed with health workers trained in emergency obstetric care, sped towards Shabeera Bibi’s location in Sindh province. Paramedics stabilized her and began transporting her to the nearest health center. They soon realized, however, there simply wasn’t enough time to reach the facility.
With her husband’s consent, Shabeera’s baby boy was delivered in the moving ambulance. This marked one of 100 babies born in an SIEHS ambulance this year alone.
“I was in a lot of pain when I was about to deliver; the baby’s condition was also at risk, and my water had broken,” Bibi recalled. She sat on a charpoy in her mud home in Hussain Notiar village, her newborn son Fayyaz in her arms.
“I am simply grateful to Allah for saving my baby and my life, and that my baby is still with me today.”
Sindh province, Pakistan’s second most populated, faces significant challenges in maternal healthcare. Thirty percent of women receive no prenatal care, and 60 percent do not give birth in a health facility. The maternal mortality ratio here is three times the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3 target.
The situation is particularly dire in rural districts like Thatta, where health infrastructure is shoddy and skilled birth attendants are scarce. SIEHS, established in 2021 as a public-private partnership, aims to bridge this gap. Its ‘HOPE’ ambulances provide free, round-the-clock assistance to people in Sindh via the 1122 helpline.
“Our job is to respond to emergencies,” Farheen Haider, an emergency medical technician (EMT) at SIEHS, told Arab News. “When it’s a delivery case, we respond immediately. If the situation is more critical, we try to manage the patient on the way.”
Since its inception, SIEHS has facilitated 400 ambulance births across Sindh, with all mothers surviving, Haider added.
Shabeera’s case exemplifies this critical service. Paramedics worked in the confined ambulance space, performing the delivery and administering immediate postnatal care. This included an APGAR scoring to assess the baby’s health, as well as cleaning the mother and baby and cutting the umbilical cord.
The baby’s grandmother, Haseena Bibi, recounted the difficult day. “We are very poor, and we couldn’t reach the hospital,” Haseena said. “We were very worried, and then [Shabeera] said she couldn’t bear it anymore.”
The ambulance arrived quickly, and Shabeera gave birth en route, she added.
Around 600 HOPE ambulances operate in various districts of Sindh, Wazeer Ahmed, SIEHS regional manager, told Arab News. He explained that a main objective of the service is to transport expecting women to hospitals. “But if complications arise or the baby is about to be delivered,” he stated, “we obtain permission from the parents or husband and proceed with the delivery inside the ambulance.”
As Featured in Arab News Pakistan
