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Objective To evaluate the effect of a national referral system that aims to reduce maternal mortality rates through improving access to and the quality of emergency obstetric care in rural Mali (sub-Saharan Africa). Methods A maternity referral system that included basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric care, transportation to obstetric health services and community cost-sharing schemes was implemented in six rural health districts in Kayes region between December 2002 and November 2005. In an uncontrolled “before and after” study, we recorded all obstetric emergencies, major obstetric interventions and maternal deaths during a 4-year observation period (1 January 2003 to 30 November 2006): the year prior to the intervention (P-1); the year of the intervention (P0), and 1 and 2 years after the intervention (P1 and P2, respectively). The primary outcome was the risk of death among obstetric emergency patients, calculated with crude case fatality rates and crude odds ratios. Analyses were adjusted for confounding variables using logistic regression. Findings The number of women receiving emergency obstetric care doubled between P-1 and P2, and the rate of major obstetric interventions (mainly Caesarean sections) performed for absolute maternal indications increased from 0.13% in P-1 to 0.46% in P2. In women treated for an obstetric emergency, the risk of death 2 years after implementing the intervention was half the risk recorded before the intervention (odds ratio, OR: 0.48; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.30-0.76). Maternal mortality rates decreased more among women referred for emergency obstetric care than among those who presented to the district health centre without referral. Nearly half (47.5%) of the reduction in deaths was attributable to fewer deaths from haemorrhage. Conclusion The intervention showed rapid effects due to the availability of major obstetric interventions in district health centres, reduced transport time to such centres for treatment, and reduced financial barriers to care. Our results show that national programmes can be implemented in low-income countries without major external funding and that they can rapidly improve the coverage of obstetric services and significantly reduce the risk of death associated with obstetric complications.
Of 177 countries on the Human Development Index for 2005, Mali was ranked 173rd17 and had the 17th highest maternal mortality ratio1 The health region of Kayes, situated in the west of Mali, has nearly 1.7 million inhabitants unevenly distributed over 120 760 km². Rugged terrain and periods of intense rain with flooding make communications difficult. The study area consists of six of the region’s seven districts. The provincial district was excluded because it is more urban. The study area contains just over 1.25 million inhabitants, and the population density of the districts varies between 9.7 and 26.2 inhabitants per km² (mean of 14.7 inhabitants per km²). Despite efforts in recent years, the geographic accessibility of health services remains poor: the distance from home to a primary health care centre is more than 5 km for 56% of the population and more than 15 km for 30%. The public health system, which is almost the only provider of modern health-care services, has few resources (one doctor per 28 000 and one midwife per 96 000 inhabitants). The study area has 101 community health centres (15 to 20 in each district) and six district health centres. Whereas the latter offer comprehensive emergency obstetric care, community health centres provide basic obstetric services, including assisted deliveries. When an emergency complication arises at the community health centre, the patient is referred to a district health centre. The overall utilization rate of reproductive health services in the study area resembles the national average for rural areas in Mali.18 The maternity referral system is a national programme launched in 2002 to reduce the risk of maternal death associated with obstetric complications.16 The system relies on three main components (Fig. 1). First, it seeks to improve communication and transport opportunities to eliminate delays in the delivery of emergency obstetric services. Funds from overseas donors are used to improve radio communications between community health facilities and district health services, as well as ambulance transport between them. Second, alternative funding options, including community cost-sharing schemes, are accessed to eliminate financial barriers to obstetric care. Community-funded schemes receive funds from the local government, local health services and community health associations and then reimburse health providers for all services they give to women, who contribute only a small co-payment. Third, training and equipment are provided to improve the clinical management of obstetric emergencies. Components and function of referral system for comprehensive emergency obstetric care, Mali, 2003–2006 The programme was designed in accordance with national guidelines but is implemented with adaptations for regional contexts in cooperation with local health partners. In the study area, the start-up period was between 2002 and 2005, depending on the district. Two categories of women use the programme’s obstetric services: (i) those with obstetric complications who are referred by community health centres and have benefited from all components of the system, and (ii) those who are self-referred to the district health centre. There are six categories of obstetric emergency, defined on the basis of the medical diagnosis or the reason for referral: haemorrhage, uterine rupture, pre-eclampsia/eclampsia, dystocic labour, infection and other (for other obstetric emergencies that cause maternal death directly, such as abortion, or indirectly, mainly malaria and anaemia).19 In 2004, a system for ongoing registration of obstetric emergencies was set up in all districts of the Kayes region. During an initial pilot phase, data collection was supported and supervised by the Regional Health Authority of Kayes and the research team. The system allowed for the documentation of each patient deemed to be an obstetric emergency, and the data collected included the sociodemographic characteristics of the woman, the obstetric diagnosis and outcome, pregnancy follow-up, etc. Data were collected retrospectively for the period from 1 January 2003 to 30 June 2004, after which the data were collected prospectively until 30 November 2006. All cases with direct and indirect obstetric complications were recorded and classified in accordance with accepted standards.19 Because the maternity referral system is a national programme that all regions must implement, it was neither ethical nor practical to include a control group that would be denied access to this programme in our study design. Therefore, we used a quasi-experimental uncontrolled before-and-after study design. The main criterion to assess the effects of the intervention is the risk of death among obstetric emergency cases. To evaluate the efficacy of the maternity referral system, we considered four periods: before the intervention (P−1), the year during which the intervention was implemented (P0) and two 12-month post-intervention periods (P1 and P2). Data availability and start date of intervention by district is shown in Fig. 2. Data availability, by period and district, in referral system for comprehensive emergency obstetric care, Mali, 2003–2006 P–1, year before the intervention; P0, year of the intervention; P1, 1 year after the intervention; P2, 2 years after the intervention. The maternity referral system was implemented on a different date in each of the six districts of the study area. As a result, the P−1 period lasted from 3 to 34 months, with a mean of 12.2 months; the P0, P1 and P2 periods all lasted 1 year, except in district 4, where P0 lasted 11 months, and for district 1, where P2 lasted 7 months. District 3 had no P1 or P2 while the study lasted since implementation of the programme was delayed because of the time it took to reach a consensus regarding community cost-sharing schemes. We checked for group comparability for the main known risk factors for maternal death (age, cause of obstetric complications). Patients came from districts where access to health services varies greatly. Districts were classified according to the percentage of the population living within 15 km from a primary health care centre (good accessibility: > 85%; average accessibility: from 60 to 85%; poor accessibility: < 60%). We compared the risk of death among obstetric emergency cases across the different periods of the study by calculating odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). To evaluate the potential effects of the intervention at different periods, adjusted ORs were calculated using various logistic regression models supported by Stata software, version 9.1 (Stata Corporation, College Station, TX, United States of America). Confounding variables included in the model were age, previous Caesarean section, diagnosis, district accessibility, Caesarean delivery and transfusion.
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