I want you to imagine something with me
imagine that you’re one of the 15
million pregnant women this year who
suffer a pregnancy complications but
you’re not living in Oakland you don’t
have access to the bay area hospitals
you’re living in a small village in
northern Nigeria you’ve never had
prenatal care you’re by yourself on a
dirt floor in a house that has no
electricity and no water and you’ve been
in labor now for two days after two days
even you realize that something is very
wrong and you ask your family if they
can possibly pull together the resources
to bring you to the nearest hospital
they barter with neighbors and get some
transportation and eventually take you
for several hours to a hospital where
they bang on the door a midwife ushers
you in tries to understand why you’re
bleeding so heavily tries to learn
whether or not the baby inside you is
still alive tries to think about how she
can contact a doctor to perform a
c-section to save your life and this is
the only light available in the hospital
this is the grim reality for millions of
women around the world it’s part of the
reason why women like these in
sub-saharan Africa face a lifetime risk
of dying during childbirth of one in 38
that means that most people know someone
personally in their family or a friend
who has actually died from something
that we consider joyous here in the
United States in fact 300,000 women lose
their lives every year in childbirth
that’s the same as two 747s filled with
pregnant women crashing to the ground
every single day why are so many women
losing their lives part of the reason is
that these women are core they’re not
having access to education they don’t
have access to health care but part of
the reason lies in the health facilities
themselves
even when they arrive in a hospital like
this one they may not get the care they
need
now I worked as a physician for many
years in the Bay Area I delivered babies
at Sutter healthcare at Alta Bates
hospital I loved the job that I had but
in 2002 when I was doing a c-section
I felt the searing pain go down my back
and I was brought to a hospital where
they actually did an MRI and told me
that my spine
looked like the spine of a 70 year old
woman I had actually had degenerating
vertebrae and I had vertebrae that were
pinching the nerves to my arms and I had
to stop my clinical career and for about
a year I was doing physical rehab just
to get to the point where I’d be able to
sit or stand long enough to actually be
able to participate in life as I used to
know it but I was not allowed to go back
and become a clinical physician well one
of the things I had always been
interested in was public health care and
even though I could no longer treat
women in an operating room myself I was
able to go to a hospital and this
hospital I went to was called cope and
Guyon hospital it’s right here this is a
hospital that serves the city of 1.5
million people and even though it was a
hospital that was caring for 150
deliveries every single every single
month this is what labor and delivery
looked like it was a far cry from what I
knew from the hospitals around here
there were none of the monitors there
was no privacy there were another
machineries that I was so accustomed to
yet some of the women arriving there
were some of the sickest women I had
ever seen in my career and one of the
things that also didn’t have was
reliable electricity what does it mean
to be a hospital without a reliable
electricity it means that surgeons like
these ones have to perform c-sections in
them in the ambient light of the day
because they don’t have electricity at
night it means that women who need blood
transfusions need to rely upon family
members to donate blood because there’s
no refrigerator to keep it fresh it
means that women like this one on the
left
in an emergency c-section waited for
hours because there was no intercom
system to allow people to call for help
and the only way to get a doctor was
actually to get a messenger who could go
around the hospital to look for a doctor
to perform the c-section and by the time
he came it was too late and she lost her
baby and it meant that at night this is
what it looked like in the maternity
ward this Midwife was actually taking
care of dozens of patients but there was
no light in the room that could show
that I began telling stories to my
family about what I was seeing in
Nigeria and one of the people I spoke to
was my husband Hal Aronson who was doing
solar energy in California now Hal heard
the stories that I just shared with you
and thought immediately that solar
electricity can make a big difference
for this hospital how developed a solar
electric kit that he could pack inside
my suitcase so that I could actually
bring a demonstration to my colleagues
in Nigeria and when I unpacked it I
shared it with them and people were
immediately excited they said this could
help us save lives right now I said
we’re actually bringing a much larger
solar electric system to the hospital
and they said no you don’t understand if
you leave this here it’ll help us
immediately well we did bring in a
larger solar electric system and the
hospital went from having an operating
theater that looked like this to looking
like that and we also brought in enough
solar powered blood-bank refrigerator
and over the next year the maternal
deaths in the hospital went down by 70%
[Applause]
and the Goodman were no longer being
turned away at night and I thought we
were done but people on the hospital
began bringing me to outlying clinics
and saying this is the doctor who
brought a solar and the clinician said
well why are you only helping the big
Hospital we are also in the dark and so
we realized that the problem that we
were seeing in the hospital was one that
was actually important throughout the
area there so we ended up creating these
small solar electric kits that I would
bring back with me each time we would go
to Nigeria I would pack my bags and
smuggle inside my suitcase one of these
small solar electric kits and soon what
we had were people that were helping us
to build these so this is actually not
very far from here about a mile away in
our back yard our back yard turned into
a solar suitcase assembly plant we would
have friends and neighbors come on every
weekend we would start trying to build
these kits trying to keep up with demand
for these solar electric skits that then
we would bring to other countries but
soon we began to get requests from
around the world and we no longer could
keep up and thanks to a grant from the
MacArthur Foundation we were actually
able to start building these in a
factory and so now we make these in
Fremont and were able to send them
around the world
so what does it mean to have a favorite
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
so the solar suitcase has everything a
regular solar electric system has it has
solar panels it has a charge controller
it has batteries and it also has highly
efficient equipment that really helped
the health workers so things like lights
and phone charging and a fetal monitor
with the solar electric it it means that
midwives now have light to be able to
work through the night it also means
that health workers can now have a way
to charge cell phones that they can call
for help
when it’s needed they’re able to have a
fetal monitor that allows them to be
able to listen to a baby its baby’s
heartbeat and they’re able to provide
resuscitation so they have light at
night to be able to provide
resuscitations when they’re needed
so we’re also using them in operating
theaters to be able to perform
c-sections through the night but
technology alone is not enough
what’s important is to be able to have
an education program to really support
people to understand how to use
technology so we began teaching health
workers how to use solar electric
systems and how to optimize the use of
these kits and soon we were going to
villages that had never seen any
electricity I love this picture it’s
actually from Sierra Leone and it’s
showing a health facility that we were
training people at and the entire
village came to the window because no
one had ever seen electric lights before
and soon we found that the health
providers themselves would become
fantastic teachers and so we began to
train midwives and doctors to become the
teachers themselves to train their peers
and even that wasn’t enough some of them
wanted to get on top of the roof and
become the solar installers so we
created a solar ambassador program and
we decided since we’re treating women in
health care why not have a group of
women ambassadors so we brought women
from around the world and we trained
them about maternal health care about
solar electricity and now these women
lead train-the-trainer programs around
the world these programs have gone to
many countries we partner with agencies
like Save the Children UNICEF Pathfinder
2/pi go
and ministries of health themselves so
that local health technicians learn how
to do installations they learn how to
take to teach health workers and they
learn how to repair equipment as well
but this point we’ve reached more than
2600 health facilities in more than 20
countries
[Applause]
but we know that there’s a lot of work
to be done to be done there we estimate
that there’s more than 200,000 health
facilities in need of reliable
electricity so we’re just we’re just
touching the tip of the iceberg and in
addition to maternal health care we know
that electricity is crucial for other
forms of medical care so after the Ebola
outbreak we sent solar suitcases to
Sierra Leone and Liberia where health
workers were trying to disturb lished
who had Ebola and who didn’t in clinics
that didn’t have even light so we
provided these two holding centers and
checkpoints to help there and after the
earthquake in Nepal we got this picture
so this picture is showing a man who was
climbing an avalanche carrying a solar
suitcase on its back he’s trying to
reach this health facility and this
health facility was one that didn’t have
any power and soon we realized this was
a major issue
so we’ve now sent hundreds of solar
suitcases to Nepal where they’re helping
damaged health centers and they’re also
helping temporary medical facilities
that are set up in tents like these so
that some of the 126 6000 pregnant women
who were still in need of care after the
earthquake could get the life-saving
care they need so this is a picture from
Puerto Rico and we were asked to send
solar suitcases there because we know
that 95% of the population right now is
without reliable electricity
[Applause]
even as our programs grow and we work
with partners on larger initiatives I’m
always reminded of the power of even one
solar ckase so this is a story about a
man who’s in the orange t-shirt his name
is Jacques sabes aho he’s a doctor from
the DR Congo he called us one day and
said could you please send a solar
suitcase to me immediately I’m in New
York I’m headed back to the dr congo my
clinic has no electricity
well we shipped it overnight and taught
him on skype how to use it and we said
please call us the minute you get to the
dr congo
so we can help you to make sure you
really know how to use this well and
provide any support we didn’t hear from
him for weeks and I was worried that
maybe his equipment was confiscated
along this journey when he finally
called he apologized he said the day
that I arrived I did help to deliver a
mother with twins but the next day there
was an outbreak of cholera and for the
next 30 days I took care of a hundred
and twenty two mothers fathers and
children with this dreaded disease he
said in the past I used to lose 50% of
my patients to cholera and 80% of those
deaths happened at night he said for the
first time in the history of our island
nobody died
[Applause]
[Music]
and he said we are witnessing what light
means in communities where night means
death to those in need of emergency care
after the Sun Goes Down so at the
beginning I asked you to imagine a world
of darkness now I want you to imagine a
world of light I want you to imagine a
world where every Health Center no
matter how remote has electricity and
lighting so that health workers can
provide care imagine a world where
mothers no longer need to bring candles
or kerosene lanterns as part of their
birthing kit where midwives no longer
need to be fearful of going to work at
night that world is possible I invite
any of you here to join us we’re trying
to ensure that every woman has the right
to safe delivery with essential
electricity we’re trying to light every
birth thank you so much
[Music]
imagine that you’re one of the 15
million pregnant women this year who
suffer a pregnancy complications but
you’re not living in Oakland you don’t
have access to the bay area hospitals
you’re living in a small village in
northern Nigeria you’ve never had
prenatal care you’re by yourself on a
dirt floor in a house that has no
electricity and no water and you’ve been
in labor now for two days after two days
even you realize that something is very
wrong and you ask your family if they
can possibly pull together the resources
to bring you to the nearest hospital
they barter with neighbors and get some
transportation and eventually take you
for several hours to a hospital where
they bang on the door a midwife ushers
you in tries to understand why you’re
bleeding so heavily tries to learn
whether or not the baby inside you is
still alive tries to think about how she
can contact a doctor to perform a
c-section to save your life and this is
the only light available in the hospital
this is the grim reality for millions of
women around the world it’s part of the
reason why women like these in
sub-saharan Africa face a lifetime risk
of dying during childbirth of one in 38
that means that most people know someone
personally in their family or a friend
who has actually died from something
that we consider joyous here in the
United States in fact 300,000 women lose
their lives every year in childbirth
that’s the same as two 747s filled with
pregnant women crashing to the ground
every single day why are so many women
losing their lives part of the reason is
that these women are core they’re not
having access to education they don’t
have access to health care but part of
the reason lies in the health facilities
themselves
even when they arrive in a hospital like
this one they may not get the care they
need
now I worked as a physician for many
years in the Bay Area I delivered babies
at Sutter healthcare at Alta Bates
hospital I loved the job that I had but
in 2002 when I was doing a c-section
I felt the searing pain go down my back
and I was brought to a hospital where
they actually did an MRI and told me
that my spine
looked like the spine of a 70 year old
woman I had actually had degenerating
vertebrae and I had vertebrae that were
pinching the nerves to my arms and I had
to stop my clinical career and for about
a year I was doing physical rehab just
to get to the point where I’d be able to
sit or stand long enough to actually be
able to participate in life as I used to
know it but I was not allowed to go back
and become a clinical physician well one
of the things I had always been
interested in was public health care and
even though I could no longer treat
women in an operating room myself I was
able to go to a hospital and this
hospital I went to was called cope and
Guyon hospital it’s right here this is a
hospital that serves the city of 1.5
million people and even though it was a
hospital that was caring for 150
deliveries every single every single
month this is what labor and delivery
looked like it was a far cry from what I
knew from the hospitals around here
there were none of the monitors there
was no privacy there were another
machineries that I was so accustomed to
yet some of the women arriving there
were some of the sickest women I had
ever seen in my career and one of the
things that also didn’t have was
reliable electricity what does it mean
to be a hospital without a reliable
electricity it means that surgeons like
these ones have to perform c-sections in
them in the ambient light of the day
because they don’t have electricity at
night it means that women who need blood
transfusions need to rely upon family
members to donate blood because there’s
no refrigerator to keep it fresh it
means that women like this one on the
left
in an emergency c-section waited for
hours because there was no intercom
system to allow people to call for help
and the only way to get a doctor was
actually to get a messenger who could go
around the hospital to look for a doctor
to perform the c-section and by the time
he came it was too late and she lost her
baby and it meant that at night this is
what it looked like in the maternity
ward this Midwife was actually taking
care of dozens of patients but there was
no light in the room that could show
that I began telling stories to my
family about what I was seeing in
Nigeria and one of the people I spoke to
was my husband Hal Aronson who was doing
solar energy in California now Hal heard
the stories that I just shared with you
and thought immediately that solar
electricity can make a big difference
for this hospital how developed a solar
electric kit that he could pack inside
my suitcase so that I could actually
bring a demonstration to my colleagues
in Nigeria and when I unpacked it I
shared it with them and people were
immediately excited they said this could
help us save lives right now I said
we’re actually bringing a much larger
solar electric system to the hospital
and they said no you don’t understand if
you leave this here it’ll help us
immediately well we did bring in a
larger solar electric system and the
hospital went from having an operating
theater that looked like this to looking
like that and we also brought in enough
solar powered blood-bank refrigerator
and over the next year the maternal
deaths in the hospital went down by 70%
[Applause]
and the Goodman were no longer being
turned away at night and I thought we
were done but people on the hospital
began bringing me to outlying clinics
and saying this is the doctor who
brought a solar and the clinician said
well why are you only helping the big
Hospital we are also in the dark and so
we realized that the problem that we
were seeing in the hospital was one that
was actually important throughout the
area there so we ended up creating these
small solar electric kits that I would
bring back with me each time we would go
to Nigeria I would pack my bags and
smuggle inside my suitcase one of these
small solar electric kits and soon what
we had were people that were helping us
to build these so this is actually not
very far from here about a mile away in
our back yard our back yard turned into
a solar suitcase assembly plant we would
have friends and neighbors come on every
weekend we would start trying to build
these kits trying to keep up with demand
for these solar electric skits that then
we would bring to other countries but
soon we began to get requests from
around the world and we no longer could
keep up and thanks to a grant from the
MacArthur Foundation we were actually
able to start building these in a
factory and so now we make these in
Fremont and were able to send them
around the world
so what does it mean to have a favorite
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
so the solar suitcase has everything a
regular solar electric system has it has
solar panels it has a charge controller
it has batteries and it also has highly
efficient equipment that really helped
the health workers so things like lights
and phone charging and a fetal monitor
with the solar electric it it means that
midwives now have light to be able to
work through the night it also means
that health workers can now have a way
to charge cell phones that they can call
for help
when it’s needed they’re able to have a
fetal monitor that allows them to be
able to listen to a baby its baby’s
heartbeat and they’re able to provide
resuscitation so they have light at
night to be able to provide
resuscitations when they’re needed
so we’re also using them in operating
theaters to be able to perform
c-sections through the night but
technology alone is not enough
what’s important is to be able to have
an education program to really support
people to understand how to use
technology so we began teaching health
workers how to use solar electric
systems and how to optimize the use of
these kits and soon we were going to
villages that had never seen any
electricity I love this picture it’s
actually from Sierra Leone and it’s
showing a health facility that we were
training people at and the entire
village came to the window because no
one had ever seen electric lights before
and soon we found that the health
providers themselves would become
fantastic teachers and so we began to
train midwives and doctors to become the
teachers themselves to train their peers
and even that wasn’t enough some of them
wanted to get on top of the roof and
become the solar installers so we
created a solar ambassador program and
we decided since we’re treating women in
health care why not have a group of
women ambassadors so we brought women
from around the world and we trained
them about maternal health care about
solar electricity and now these women
lead train-the-trainer programs around
the world these programs have gone to
many countries we partner with agencies
like Save the Children UNICEF Pathfinder
2/pi go
and ministries of health themselves so
that local health technicians learn how
to do installations they learn how to
take to teach health workers and they
learn how to repair equipment as well
but this point we’ve reached more than
2600 health facilities in more than 20
countries
[Applause]
but we know that there’s a lot of work
to be done to be done there we estimate
that there’s more than 200,000 health
facilities in need of reliable
electricity so we’re just we’re just
touching the tip of the iceberg and in
addition to maternal health care we know
that electricity is crucial for other
forms of medical care so after the Ebola
outbreak we sent solar suitcases to
Sierra Leone and Liberia where health
workers were trying to disturb lished
who had Ebola and who didn’t in clinics
that didn’t have even light so we
provided these two holding centers and
checkpoints to help there and after the
earthquake in Nepal we got this picture
so this picture is showing a man who was
climbing an avalanche carrying a solar
suitcase on its back he’s trying to
reach this health facility and this
health facility was one that didn’t have
any power and soon we realized this was
a major issue
so we’ve now sent hundreds of solar
suitcases to Nepal where they’re helping
damaged health centers and they’re also
helping temporary medical facilities
that are set up in tents like these so
that some of the 126 6000 pregnant women
who were still in need of care after the
earthquake could get the life-saving
care they need so this is a picture from
Puerto Rico and we were asked to send
solar suitcases there because we know
that 95% of the population right now is
without reliable electricity
[Applause]
even as our programs grow and we work
with partners on larger initiatives I’m
always reminded of the power of even one
solar ckase so this is a story about a
man who’s in the orange t-shirt his name
is Jacques sabes aho he’s a doctor from
the DR Congo he called us one day and
said could you please send a solar
suitcase to me immediately I’m in New
York I’m headed back to the dr congo my
clinic has no electricity
well we shipped it overnight and taught
him on skype how to use it and we said
please call us the minute you get to the
dr congo
so we can help you to make sure you
really know how to use this well and
provide any support we didn’t hear from
him for weeks and I was worried that
maybe his equipment was confiscated
along this journey when he finally
called he apologized he said the day
that I arrived I did help to deliver a
mother with twins but the next day there
was an outbreak of cholera and for the
next 30 days I took care of a hundred
and twenty two mothers fathers and
children with this dreaded disease he
said in the past I used to lose 50% of
my patients to cholera and 80% of those
deaths happened at night he said for the
first time in the history of our island
nobody died
[Applause]
[Music]
and he said we are witnessing what light
means in communities where night means
death to those in need of emergency care
after the Sun Goes Down so at the
beginning I asked you to imagine a world
of darkness now I want you to imagine a
world of light I want you to imagine a
world where every Health Center no
matter how remote has electricity and
lighting so that health workers can
provide care imagine a world where
mothers no longer need to bring candles
or kerosene lanterns as part of their
birthing kit where midwives no longer
need to be fearful of going to work at
night that world is possible I invite
any of you here to join us we’re trying
to ensure that every woman has the right
to safe delivery with essential
electricity we’re trying to light every
birth thank you so much
[Music]
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