Maternity Waiting Homes in Papua New Guinea: A Grassroots Solution to A Health Service Delivery Problem?: Literature review.

Paigatasa’s village committee have requested financial support from PAIGA for land purchase in Goroka to establish a maternity waiting home (MWH) for village women. This paper reviews the literature on MWHs to determine effectiveness, cost-benefit, acceptability/utilisation factors, sustainability, benefits/opportunities and challenges of this intervention for Paigatasa community, and for the PNG health system in general, to answer the question: Could maternity waiting homes be one health system solution to the problem of maternity service access and high maternal and neonatal mortality in PNG?