A Simple, Effective Way to Reduce Infant Mortality

Leeda Rashid has seen how Embrace can make a difference in places such as Afghanistan, where she runs HEEDA, a health non-profit.

Q: HOW DID YOU CONNECT WITH EMBRACE?

A: My husband, who’s also a physician, and I looked through the technology and some basic research that was already done at Stanford on the Embrace, and we thought, my goodness, this is very appropriate for hospitals in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is notorious for poor grid access. If you’re a hospital that happens to be in a neighborhood that has a lot of rolling blackouts, you’re not going to be able to use a lot of the medical technologies out there. Through our nonprofit, we’ve deployed upwards of 75 to 80 of the warmers [in Afghanistan]. We’re in four of the largest public-sector hospitals. We’re at a little more than 10,000 uses over the last three years. We’re now working to do what the minister of health wants. He says the product needs to go out to rural Afghanistan. That’s where a lot of the deliveries are happening, and there is virtually no electricity there.

Q: THE RURAL SETTING MUST BE EVEN MORE COMPLICATED.

A: Our first step is to start using them in public ambulances. On a recent trip, I was assessing the ambulance sites to see if Embrace can be used during delivery between someone’s home, or from a rural clinic, to the larger, district-level hospitals.

Read full article HERE: bit.ly/reducingmortality

Learn more about HEEDA: www.heeda.org

In Washington DC from the USAWC meeting

The former first lady and honorary co-chair Laura Bush along with members of the USAWC

This past week, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the US Afghan Women’s Council Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.  It happened to also be the launch of “We Are Afghan Women”,  a wonderful narrative by Former First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush.  

I won’t go into a book review because I think you all should read it for yourselves. It’s divided into sections entitled Living, Learning, Working, Surviving, and Challenging, and it truly does depict these women (and men) as overcoming insurmountable barriers to improving their own lives and those around them. Its an inspiration at any point in our lives to be witness to people who are truly putting themselves in the line of fire for the sake of change; especially in a country as culturally and politically complex as Afghanistan, so I encourage everyone to read it.

I also won’t go into too much detail about the women, men, artists, activists and all around amazing people that I met. From candid talks about why aid and development needs innovative models in order to be truly successful in Afghanistan, to seeing the inspiring work of the Turquoise Mountain exhibitors at the Smithsonian’s Freer Sackler Museum, I will just say that every person, organization or program that I encountered left me humbled by what our country can accomplish when we take our struggled and learn from our past and push forward towards a better future.

HEEDA is proud to be part of the efforts at the US Afghan Women’s Council.   We are committed to working with other organizations to support the development efforts in Afghanistan.

Distribution day! Hospital and school supplies.

HEEDA CoFounder Leeda Rashid MD MPH delivering school supplies
in late January 2016

As we've visited hospitals and schools while here in Afghanistan, one common theme seems to keep coming up: CAPACITY!  Both in human resources and basic supplies.  

Hospitals need everything from simple oxygen or surgical gloves; and schools need everything from pens to paper.  As we explore ways to support these institutions in the most sustainable way, we often rely on the kindness and dedication of our donors and friends to supply those basics.  

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We visited a school at the Internally Displaced Baghlan Camp and donated school supplies to 30+ 1st-3rd graders. We were floored to find out that the school is run by a 15 year old girl.  There are 170 families in this camp.    We want to explore working with this very inspiring young girl and bring basic electricity (perhaps a solar station) to their camp so she can continue to teach and bring hope to this outlying community.  

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We were also able to bring a lot of general medical supplies to the hospitals this time thanks to a generous donation from Medshare.  Yes we shipped them in our suitcases and yes customs gave us strange looks but we were able to get quite a bit here!!!   

Advanced airway equipment including BVM bags, endotracheal tubes, LMAs, and oxygen tubing were all part of this year's distributions.

 We are exploring a long term solution to shipping all these free medical supplies.  They are sitting in large warehouses in the US waiting for patients who need them most.   Let us know if you have creative ideas.

RBH, 5 years later

By Dr. Leeda Rashid

We visited the current Warmth to Afghanistan Site Hospitals for a quick program evaluation. I do have to warn that some of the images and video (to be uploaded at a later time) may be a little upsetting so please watch only if you feel comfortable. 

Entering Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital was pretty anxiety providing; the hospital struggles with very poor infrastructure and capacity, but still continues to see upwards of 80 deliveries and c-sections almost every day (an unimaginable amount by any hospital standards). 

We met this little guy (pic above). In a bitter twist of fate, as soon as we arrived and began to listen to the story, the lights in the hospital went out. Another of many rolling blackouts. Recent terrorist  and attacks on the power lines connecting Kabul have caused increasing blackouts across Afghanistan. The baby was placed in an Embrace Warmer which will serve to keep him normothermic during these very critical early hours of his life. He was just born 18 hours ago: premature, to a mother, who is recovering from an emergent c-section. He weighs only 2100 grams. Without interventions like the Embrace warmer, the dedicated staff of this hospital and the support of our HEEDA friends, I shudder to think what would happen to him as he waits for an electricity pipeline to come back on. It's a pipeline dominated by much more complex issues than healthcare alone and it seems unfair that he has to wait for that. 

My hope is that all babies have access to early health intervention and that Afghanistan's health system has the resources they need to intervene.  We believe impacting technologies can do just that.  

Dr. Rashid is a physician, data scientist, and HEEDA co-founder.