Departing from the reality that Angola registers extremely high maternal-infant mortality rates, since 2019, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has been providing support for perinatal care at the Lucrécia Paim Maternity Hospital in Luanda – which cares for an average of 80 births per day.

Through this project, the public hospital, which is also a benchmark reference for the provision of healthcare to pregnant women and newly born infants, has received human resource training, with internships held in Portugal, contracted health technicians, refurbished and acquired equipment and complementary material for the specialist care unit as well as revising procedures, defining protocols and technical consultancy to the professionals providing assistance to the newly born.

Carried out in collaboration with the Portuguese Society of Neonatology, this regular accompanying and monitoring has contributed to a significant impact; reducing the neonatal mortality rate in Luanda’s main maternity hospital.

Watch the video and find out more about this health institution, its professionals and the challenges that they face on a daily basis in their efforts to lower the neonatal mortality rate in the maternity hospital.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the conclusion of this project phase, foreseen for the end of 2020, was delayed until the end of 2021.