By Mkinga Mkinga
The Citizen Correspobndent
Dar es Salaam. Several local firms have teamed up with their foreign counterparts to import tricycle ambulances which can be used on most rural roads of Tanzania and decrease maternal mortality rates.
Speaking during a familiarisation tour in Dodoma recently, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda assured them of the government’s support in the endeavour, saying decreasing maternal mortality was one of the government’s priorities.
He said mobile clinical services would help the government in improving maternal services like some countries which have been successful in the endeavour through using tri-cycles as ambulances.
“I have been told that the quality assurance office is still working on the qualities of these tri-cycles and afterwards I would like to see that each district has at least one such ambulance,” he said during a demonstration of the tri-cycle ambulances at the last Bunge session.
The number of women who die during delivery in the country has dropped to 400 from 578 for every 100,000 women giving birth, according to a recent demographic health survey. The last such survey was made in 2005 and the recent data have been obtained in the survey of last year.
Premier Pinda advised the owners to make sure that there were enough spare parts for the tricycles. He also challenged other companies to start importing similar tricycles saying this would help in having fair prices as there will be stiff competition among them.
Speaking to this paper, Mr Anic Kashasha, chief executive officer of Spray and Fumigation Services Limited, which imports the tricycles, said they were waiting for the quality assurance test before inviting local authorities to order the tricycles.
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