Guest blog by Rachel Pounds, Head of Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit (EHU)
Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, now WHO-verified, delivers lifesaving maternal and newborn care in disasters worldwide. From Gaza to Mozambique, our teams provide urgent medical support, build sustainable healthcare systems, and ensure no mother or baby is left behind.
Tima* (26) found out she was pregnant in July 2023. She was excited to be having her second child and decorated a room in their home in preparation for the new baby. She thought about how she would spoil her new baby and how she would provide it with the best food and nice clothes. Then in October 2023, the war in Gaza started and everything changed. Tima, her husband, her son Hani* (19 months) and her parents, including her mother Eileen* (49), were displaced multiple times as fighting expanded across the Gaza strip. Tima says the most terrifying night was when they were sheltering in a greenhouse and bombs were falling all around them and bullets were slashing the plastic of the greenhouse. Tima says it’s been hard being pregnant during the war. They now live in a tent in central Gaza, and they do everything on the ground – cooking, washing, eating and sleeping. Tima’s back ached and she was exhausted. She was also very worried about where she would give birth safely, given the continuous attacks on healthcare facilities during the war. Tima visited the hospital where Save the Children is providing life-saving services for children and their families and had pre-natal check-up. Tima liked the facility and asked if she could give birth when she was due. Baby Lana* then arrived on 26 April 2024 and was the first baby to be born at Save the Children’s new maternity unit in the Gaza Strip, which was set up with the Emergency Health Unit. Tima and Eileen were so relieved when Lana arrived safely. Tima says her husband has red hair, so her daughter definitely looks like her. Although baby Lana was healthy when she left the hospital, after three days she developed a fever, refused to breastfeed and had blood coming from her umbilical cord. Tima was quick to bring her daughter back to the hospital where she was admitted to the inpatient ward and was treated by the Emergency Health Unit’s Dr Ana Paola Cardenas. Dr Cardenas said baby Lana had contracted sepsis (infection of the umbilical cord) due to the tough living conditions in Al Mawasi where her family lives in a tent and has very limited access to clean water and washing facilities. If left untreated, sepsis can easily kill a baby. However, thanks to Tima’s quick actions, a course of intravenous antibiotics and close monitoring in the inpatient facility, baby Lana has made a full recovery.
As leader of Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, I have seen firsthand how women going into labour and newborns are among the most badly affected when any disaster strikes, often left to give birth without adequate medical care and in unhygienic and life-threatening conditions.
Latest figures show that almost 800 women a day continue to die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, and in nine countries facing severe humanitarian crises, maternal mortality rates were more than double the world average, at 551 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 223 globally.
This is why I am so glad that the EHU was verified by the WHO this month as the first NGO maternal and baby specialist Emergency Medical Team (EMT) that can be deployed to health emergencies in countries across the globe.
This time last year in Gaza, we established a maternity unit, inside British charity UK-Med's field hospital, to bridge the staggering gap in maternal healthcare— few facilities were operational, and hygiene conditions were appalling. Our team was the first surge team to deploy from Save the Children, and rapidly set up a safe, clean environment where women could access essential reproductive, newborn, and pediatric care. Our pediatric nurses began catering to wounded children, ensuring that they received appropriate pain relief, and within just a few weeks, Lana* became the first newborn delivered at the facility. When she later fell severely ill from unclean water, our team provided life-saving antibiotics. The impact was immediate and life-changing.
-at-a-hospital-in-the-Gaza-S-ch11032850.webp/hdxr13t5c73tu2k58y2056l651r3dhjx.jpg?g=0.5x0.33&w=2562&format=webp&itok=A3EBLR47 "Pediatric nurse Becky tends to Ahmed*, 10, at a hospital in the Gaza Strip.")
Ahmed* (10) was severely injured when an airstrike hit a house close to where he was playing with his friends in the Gaza Strip. A piece of shrapnel struck his leg and shattered the bone. Many of Ahmed’s friends were killed in the same strike. Ahmed has endured multiple surgeries and has an external metal fixator on his leg to try and help the bone heal. Mohammed* (45), Ahmed’s father, says the war has had a terrible impact on his son’s metal and physical health. Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit is providing life-saving healthcare for children and their families in the Gaza Strip. Paediatric nurse, Becky Platt, has been supporting Ahmed at a newly constructed field hospital, focusing especially on managing his pain and reducing his distress when his wounds are cleaned and bandaged.
Disasters, conflicts, and disease outbreaks can quickly overwhelm healthcare systems. We saw this after Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019, where entire communities were displaced. Our team set up mobile clinics and rehabilitated damaged health facilities alongside the Ministry of Health. I will never forget meeting a woman who had climbed a tree with her three children, tying herself and them there for over 12 hours as floodwaters raged below. When she finally reached our clinic, she had lost everything—but we were there to provide care for her and her children. These moments remind us why our work matters: reaching people in their darkest hours with the support they desperately need.
Countries can get overwhelmed following a disaster but people still need health care, sometimes lifesaving health care, which can be met when we deploy self-sufficient clinical capacity in the form of maternity, child and new born specialist care units or Primary health care clinics. Emergency Medical Teams, or EMTs, can provide life-saving care to those affected by health emergencies.
EMTs, like ours, provide critical, lifesaving healthcare in such crises. These teams – comprising of doctors, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, paramedics, logistics personnel and water and sanitation specialists, are trained to respond rapidly and provide comprehensive support to local health systems. Our clinical staff are licensed to provide direct medical care, ensuring high standards as well as innovations in medical care. Our global team brings essential language skills and cultural awareness, working with Ministries of Health, local organizations, and community health workers to build long-term capacity.
EMTs need to meet WHO specifications for endorsement and to be included as part of their list of certified teams. They were set up in the wake of the Haiti earthquake in 2010 that killed more than 220,000 people, amid an international drive to set standards and criteria for foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters. This system was first put into action in Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013.
I have worked for the EHU for nearly a decade, and I have seen our impact across multiple crise. To date, we have reached over five million people and trained 18,000 health workers. In some cases, such as in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh - the world’s largest refugee settlement housing about one million Rohingya refugees – most of the clinics we set up in 2017 are still running today. We don’t just respond to emergencies—we leave behind sustainable healthcare solutions.
Receiving the EMT certification is recognition of the specialist care needed by women and babies when disasters strike. It reinforces our ability to act swiftly in crises and provide essential care to women and newborns who would otherwise be left without support. This is more than just a milestone. It is a commitment—to every mother and newborn caught in disaster—that they will not be forgotten.
*Names changed.
-ch11540394.webp/7uk6e26tl271f602v8x81i3511088wsw.jpg?g=0.5x0.33&w=1440&h=600&format=webp&itok=522pF-LY "CH11540394_Tents amongst destroyed buildings in Gaza (1)")
