Geneva, Switzerland- During the World Health Organization’s 79th World Health Assembly, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa and Proximie Global Health signed a Memorandum of Understanding to digitise and extend Nigeria’s obstetric workforce. The partnership was convened by the Health Innovation Exchange and supported by Amazon Web Services through the Proximie x AWS Social Responsibility and Impact Initiative.

The signing was witnessed by an exceptional gathering of multilateral, continental, regional and national leaders, bringing together Dr. Pavel Ursu, WHO Country Representative for Nigeria, H.E. Governors Stephen Sang of Nandi County and Muthomi Njuki of Tharaka-Nithi County, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju of MAMII Nigeria, Dr. Abas Hassen of Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health, Ms. Mary Mwiti, Chief Executive Officer of the Council of Governors of Kenya, Dr. Michael Mwachiro of the Surgical Society of Kenya, Professor Joseph Adelegan of Partners in Population and Development, Dr. Patty Mechael of health.enabled, Claire Lachance of ReSurge International, Kat Esser of Amazon Web Services, and Laura Ferguson of the University of Southern California.

Phase one commits to establishing a digital simulation hub at WBFA’s Lagos Centre of Excellence, integrated within the Advanced Obstetric Surgical Skills and Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care training WBFA delivers with the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, providing live expert training, recorded cases for faculty-led debrief, and a bi-directional learning loop so that what trainees encounter in their home facilities reshapes the next training cycle. Fewer maternal and newborn deaths is the measure of its success. The partnership brings together Proximie’s 50 AWS-powered digital hubs across seven African countries and WBFA’s over two decades of frontline programming. 

“Nigeria contributes approximately one in four maternal deaths globally, and the majority of those deaths are from conditions that are clinically preventable with timely, skilled care. WBFA has worked for over two decades to close that gap at the community level, and this partnership with Proximie is the next step in that work, bringing digital simulation, live expert training, and a bi-directional learning architecture into the hands of the Nigerian obstetric workforce at the scale the challenge demands. What moved me most was the willingness of Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia to share what works across their borders, on their own terms, with the shared goal of ensuring that no mother dies from a cause we already know how to prevent.” H.E. Mrs Toyin Ojora Saraki, Founder and President, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa.

“Proximie believes no clinician should have to learn alone, and this partnership is the fullest expression of that mission we have yet committed to. By integrating Proximie’s platform into WBFA’s existing training infrastructure, we are building the connective digital layer that allows world-class surgical and obstetrical training to reach the facilities, the faculty, and the frontline health workers who need it most, and the conversation that followed the signing confirmed that the political will to scale this model continentally is real and present.” Dr. Shannon Shibata-Germanos, Head of Global Health, Proximie.

About the Wellbeing Foundation Africa

The Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBFA), is a non-governmental organisation at the forefront of driving positive health outcomes and transformative wellbeing across Nigeria and the African continent. Since its inception in 2004 by Her Excellency Mrs. Toyin Ojora Saraki, WBFA has been implementing frontline programming and advocating for health and wellbeing while championing sustainable development initiatives. 

About Proximie

Proximie is a cloud-based operating room (OR) intelligence platform designed to connect surgical teams, workflows, devices, and perioperative data across the OR environment, and across hospitals worldwide. Its mission is to solve healthcare’s most pressing challenges: from access to safe surgery to workforce pressures, OR efficiency, and patient demand.

Proximie’s Intelligence Suite transforms OR performance through real-time surgical intelligence, using computer vision and AI to detect surgical events, improve OR efficiency, and power clinical insights. On average, using the Intelligence Suite, Proximie customers gain one additional surgical case per OR per day, by revealing the hidden capacity that is available in any given OR.  Proximie’s Surgical Suite, which is used across Africa, provides healthcare teams with real-time remote access and a secure video archive of every procedure, improving real-time surgical knowledge exchange, training and collaboration. Proximie has been deployed in over 500 hospitals across 50 countries and five continents, and has been featured in more than 20 peer-reviewed publications. In Africa, Proximie has been deployed in 50 ORs. 

About the Health Innovation Exchange

The Health Innovation Exchange is a cross-sector convening platform that architects partnerships for scalable health system impact, bringing together governments, multilateral institutions, civil society, and private sector partners to advance evidence-led approaches to global health challenges.

For media enquiries please contact: The Wellbeing Foundation Africa at zelia.bukhari@wbfafrica.org.

 

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