Statement
According to the World Health Organization, every minute at least one woman dies worldwide from complications of pregnancy or childbirth. This outcome creates an enormous negative economic impact on the rural population due to child abandonment and the loss of the ability to fetch water and gather firewood to sustain families. There is pressure to fulfill the responsibilities in the villages of those women who have died or have become unable to perform their work. Men leave their fields and animals unattended in order to carry women to a remote health facility, only to find that the visiting doctor already has left. The Ethiopian Government is working diligently to build rural hospitals and roads, and they are training doctors and midwives to assist obstructed labor. In addition, child marriage has been outlawed in Ethiopia with the goal of eradicating the occurrence of fistula and maternal/neonatal deaths. However, there still remains a dire shortage of doctors in the rural areas of Ethiopia.
