Filmmaker, doctor honoured for documentary
07/04/15 12:58 Filed in: Maternal mortality in Rural Africa
Filmmaker, doctor honoured for documentary
Jessica Laws/For The Intelligencer
Monday, April 6, 2015 2:45:20 EDT PM
Two local childhood friends were one of the winners awarded at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference Film Festival.
Ottawa doctor, global health researcher and Belleville native Dr. Gail Webber and Belleville filmmaker Doug Knutson of Windswept Productions spent a month in Tanzania in 2012 making the short documentary “Saving Mothers: Preventing Maternal Mortality in Rural Africa.”
“It’s such a world away from where we live, some things are similar and some things you can’t imagine them,” said Knutson.
The short film outlines the research project led by Dr. Webber to combat the very high death-rate among delivering mothers in rural Tanzania.
According to the film, maternal mortality rate in Tanzania is very high with an alarming rate of one per hour — usually due to bleeding or infection.
With the backing of Grand Challenges Canada, Dr. Webber with the help of Knutson set out to discover whether distributing two simple medications can reverse this deadly trend.
However, a change has been made since the video was made and erythromycin is no longer included with the misoprostol.
They have now introduced a ‘Clean Birth Kit’ which provides gloves, plastic sheets, soap, a razor blade for cutting the umbilical cord and string for tying it off.
The goal of the birth kit is to help reduce the chances for infection and the misoprostol is to stop hemorrhaging.
The festival took place in Boston last Friday and awarded the duo in the category of High Impact Innovations in Global Health.
“It was exciting news. It’s good to have some recognition for your work and it was exciting to go to a big American city and meet with other filmmakers,” said Knutson.
Dr. Webber is currently expanding her project to a larger area of Tanzania with the goal that this research can be applied throughout the developing world.
She is headed back to Tanzania on Saturday and although nothing is in the making yet, Knutson would like to be the one to do an update video on how the project is going.
The Consortium of Universities for Global Health hopes to help with building interdisciplinary collaborations, facilities and in the sharing of knowledge to address global health challenges.
The film was first premiered here in Belleville at the 2013 Downtown DocFest.
Jessica Laws/For The Intelligencer
Monday, April 6, 2015 2:45:20 EDT PM
Two local childhood friends were one of the winners awarded at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference Film Festival.
Ottawa doctor, global health researcher and Belleville native Dr. Gail Webber and Belleville filmmaker Doug Knutson of Windswept Productions spent a month in Tanzania in 2012 making the short documentary “Saving Mothers: Preventing Maternal Mortality in Rural Africa.”
“It’s such a world away from where we live, some things are similar and some things you can’t imagine them,” said Knutson.
The short film outlines the research project led by Dr. Webber to combat the very high death-rate among delivering mothers in rural Tanzania.
According to the film, maternal mortality rate in Tanzania is very high with an alarming rate of one per hour — usually due to bleeding or infection.
With the backing of Grand Challenges Canada, Dr. Webber with the help of Knutson set out to discover whether distributing two simple medications can reverse this deadly trend.
However, a change has been made since the video was made and erythromycin is no longer included with the misoprostol.
They have now introduced a ‘Clean Birth Kit’ which provides gloves, plastic sheets, soap, a razor blade for cutting the umbilical cord and string for tying it off.
The goal of the birth kit is to help reduce the chances for infection and the misoprostol is to stop hemorrhaging.
The festival took place in Boston last Friday and awarded the duo in the category of High Impact Innovations in Global Health.
“It was exciting news. It’s good to have some recognition for your work and it was exciting to go to a big American city and meet with other filmmakers,” said Knutson.
Dr. Webber is currently expanding her project to a larger area of Tanzania with the goal that this research can be applied throughout the developing world.
She is headed back to Tanzania on Saturday and although nothing is in the making yet, Knutson would like to be the one to do an update video on how the project is going.
The Consortium of Universities for Global Health hopes to help with building interdisciplinary collaborations, facilities and in the sharing of knowledge to address global health challenges.
The film was first premiered here in Belleville at the 2013 Downtown DocFest.