The BMJ Appeal Christmas 2019: With WaterAid’s help, cleaner clinics offer safer healthcare

Avelina Alfred’s first child died just hours after she gave birth. This 21st century experience of childbirth is a shocking reminder of an easily forgotten truth: that clean water on tap is essential to providing effective healthcare.

Alfred had given birth last year in a village clinic in northwest Tanzania that at the time lacked running water and proper toilets. She doesn’t know the exact cause of death, but what happened is not unusual in such settings. Worldwide a newborn baby dies on average every second from an infection related to a lack of safe water and an unclean environment, it has been estimated.12

“The hospital was always dirty,” Alfred told The BMJ. Like every other patient, she paid for water to be …