Kachumbala is an impoverished area in eastern Uganda, home to 160,000 people with limited access to healthcare. The region’s only existing maternity ward could not accommodate all of the region’s expectant mothers, leaving many to stay home and give birth. Those who did travel to the ward often had to be moved out into the hallway to recover on a cement floor. As a result, the region suffers from a high infant and maternal mortality rate

When the First Minister for Wales visited Kachumbala in 2014, the local municipality set him a challenge: to reduce neonatal and maternal mortality by improving maternity provision in this remote area. The brief was to design a new maternity unit able to serve its people with the materials, utilities, and construction techniques available on-site.

The objectives were to:

• reduce number of home births
• increase medical supervision
• ensure new mothers remain in the Centre for 24 hours
• promote importance of primary healthcare

Just three-and-a-half years later, a £110,000 unit serving a population of 60,000 opened, the result of a collaboration between HKS and Engineers for Overseas Development, a Wales-based non-profit that trains young apprentices in the building trades. The project involved the design and construction of two labour suites, a nine-bed ward, staff offices and support facilities and an extension to the existing Health Unit.