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Faculty of Health Sciences
School of Medicine
Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
The MRC Maternal and Infant Health Care Strategies Research Unit concentrates on researching and developing effective methods for introducing health care programmes into health districts. It has successfully developed the Essential Steps for Managing Obstetric Emergencies and demonstrated that the programme significantly improves the skills of interns when managing obstetric emergencies. This programme will be scaled-up throughout South Africa in the next few years. The unit also focuses on ways of integrating maternal, neonatal and child health programmes into the district health system. The main focus for 2008 has been to perform a gaps survey on prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. This survey revealed that the main problem in the PMTCT system was disconnectiveness between patient, health care provider and health care manager at all levels. A strategy has been developed to remove these barriers. It will be tested in Mpumalanga in 2009. The unit also produced the sixth Quality of Perinatal Care survey of South Africa (2006 to 2007) and the fourth Quality of Child Health Care in the Health System survey of South Africa (2006)
Contact person: Prof RC Pattinson.
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