Purpose: We conducted a survey to determine availability of emergency obstetric care (EmOC) and to provide data for advocating for improved maternal and newborn health in Uganda.
Methods: The survey, covering 54 districts and 553 health facilities, assessed availability of EmOC signal functions, documented maternal deaths and the related causes. Three levels of health facilities were covered.
Findings: Few health units had running water; electricity or a functional operating theater. Yet having these items had a protective effect on maternal deaths as follows: theater (OR 0.56, P<0.0001); electricity (OR 0.39, P<0.0001); laboratory (OR 0.71, P<0.0001) and staffing levels (midwives) OR 0.20, P<0.0001. The availability of midwives had the highest protective effect on maternal deaths, reducing the case fatality rate by 80%. Further, most (97.2%) health facilities expected to offer basic EmOC, were not doing so. This is the likely explanation for the high health facility-based maternal death rate of 671/100,000 live births in Uganda.
Conclusion: Addressing health system issues, especially human resources, and increasingaccess to EmOC could reduce maternal mortality in Uganda and enable the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG).