LAUSR

Uganda is one of the developing countries with high maternal and infant mortality rates; maternal, 336 per 100,000 live births and infant, 43 per 1000 births respectively in 2016 (UDHS 2016). Adverse maternal-fetal outcomes in developing countries are primarily related to three delays: time to decision to seek health care, access to health services, and timely intervention at the health facility (Pacagnella et al. 2014; Thaddeus and Maine 1994). Given the high mortality rates in Uganda, there is a big need for improvement. Cell phone technology has been used in other African settings to potentially improve maternity care and referral systems (Oyeyemi and Wynn 2015; Lund et al. 2014; Murray and Pearson 2006). However, these interventions have centred on providing pregnant women with cell phones, an expensive intervention. Resources for such a large scale intervention are not readily available in our setting in southwest Uganda. We therefore piloted a more modest intervention, providing a mobile phone and recharged credit to the local health centre for the purpose of a pre-referral phone call to a dedicated number at the major regional referral hospital. Themain objective of this pilot study was to assess whether health centres given SIM cards and cell phones would make pre-referral phone calls toMbarara Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH).