Disruptions in maternal health service use during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020: experiences from 37 health facilities in low-income and middle-income countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heterogeneously affected use of basic health services worldwide, with disruptions in some countries beginning in the early stages of the emergency in March 2020. These disruptions have occurred on both the supply and demand sides of healthcare, and have often been related to resource shortages to provide care and lower patient turnout associated with mobility restrictions and fear of contracting COVID-19 at facilities. In this paper, we assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of maternal health services using a time series modelling approach developed to monitor health service use during the pandemic using routinely collected health information systems data. We focus on data from 37 non-governmental organisation-supported health facilities in Haiti, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mexico and Sierra Leone. Overall, our analyses indicate significant declines in first antenatal care visits in Haiti (18% drop) and Sierra Leone (32% drop) and facility-based deliveries in all countries except Malawi from March to December 2020. Different strategies were adopted to maintain continuity of maternal health services, including communication campaigns, continuity of community health worker services, human resource capacity building to ensure compliance with international and national guidelines for front-line health workers, adapting spaces for safe distancing and ensuring the availability of personal protective equipment. We employ a local lens, providing prepandemic context and reporting results and strategies by country, to highlight the importance of developing context-specific interventions to design effective mitigation strategies.

Reducing Decision to Incision Time Interval for Emergency Cesarean Sections: 24 Months' Experience from Rural Sierra Leone.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed at describing the changes in the completeness of documentation and changes in decision to incision time interval of emergency cesarean sections after an audit and feedback project a rural hospital in Sierra Leone. METHODS: We documented and monitored the decision and incision times for emergency cesarean sections over the course of two years. Year one focused on the introduction of the project and year two focused on the continuous monitoring of the project. We compared the completeness of decision to incision data and used the 30-min benchmark as target for the decision to incision time interval. RESULTS: A total of 762 emergency cesarean sections were included. While the completion of decision time data (72%) did not change between the two reporting periods, documentation of incision time increased from 95% to 98% (p < 0.001). Complete documentation for both decision and incision time was available for 540 (70.9%) emergency cesarean sections. The decision to incision time interval decreased from 105 min to 42 min (p < 0.001). The proportion of cesarean sections started within 30 min increased from 8.5% to 37% (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Although not all cesarean sections were performed within the 30-min threshold, the decision to incision interval decreased significantly. Improvements in documentation and routine reporting of the decision to incision time interval is recommended.