Population Council Research that makes a difference

Population Council staff conducted a situation analysis of reproductive health services in seven states to understand programmatic factors that contribute to the current health status of women and newborns in Sudan. The study was done collaboratively by the Council and Sudan's Ministry of Health (MOH) with funds from UNFPA, UNICEF, and the Packard Foundation and was implemented in the following states: Gadarif, Gezira, Kassala, Khartoum, North Kordofan, South Kordofan, and South Darfur.

The study collected data from a total of 348 primary, secondary, and tertiary care facilities to assess their readiness to provide reproductive health care services and the quality of the services provided. Interviews also were conducted with 909 providers who offer reproductive health services, 1,029 village midwives, and 1,313 clients seeking care at the facilities.  

The analysis highlighted the following gaps in the availability and quality of maternal and neonatal health services:

• Uneven distribution of providers across the states; nurses and nurse midwives are key providers of reproductive health (RH) services in the surveyed facilities, accounting for 43 percent of staff providing RH services as compared to 12 percent of general practitioners
• Limited access to family planning services in the study states
• Pregnant women in the study states seldom receive counseling on birth spacing or birth preparedness
• Inadequate knowledge and skills of birth attendants in the study states
• Emergency obstetric care (EMOC) services are lacking in many secondary and tertiary care facilities

The study concludes with a list of recommendations that focus on increasing access to contraception, increasing access to skilled care during delivery, and providing rapid access to high-quality EMOC services. The findings from the study have been shared with policymakers, donors, and other stakeholders in Sudan. Discussions are underway with Sudan's MOH to develop low-cost interventions to address the gaps in service delivery described above.