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In
March 2005 I accompanied a team of three other midwives
and an Obstetric/gynaecologist on a visit to the new
hospital in Kambia. We
left Cheltenham with a good few layers of snow, but
arrived at the airport in Freetown late at night in
intense heat. The bumpy drive to Kambia in the hot and
humid conditions was an amazing start to an incredible
experience.
Nurses
Alice and Margaret were awake and ready to greet us at 2
am! When we eventually crashed into bed sleep was an
interesting challenge due to the humidity, vultures
scampering around on the roof, dogs yelping and the
unfamiliar night sounds of the hospital. Our resident
cockerel certainly pushed his luck with his morning
chorus.
During
our time at the hospital there was always someone in
labour being cared for by the maternity care health
workers, or a relative, or no one at all. We were often
able to help by suggesting examinations and assessments
needing to be done and going ahead with Caesareans, saving
lives that could otherwise have been lost. We were working
in ghastly circumstances. ‘Scrubbing up’ under a
trickle of water from a plastic bucket, putting on
operating gowns that were clean but perhaps not sterile.
The hospital generator only comes on for three hours in
the evening so most of the time there was no light other
than our torches and the fan didn’t work, making the
humidity almost unbearable.
The
poverty in Kambia was stark and we witnessed many deaths.
Two mothers and seven babies died whilst we were there.
There were two intrauterine deaths and a stillbirth that
would undoubtedly have been saved under different
circumstances. One baby was admitted with tetanus probably
as a result of the practice of using cow dung on a newborn
infant’s umbilical cord.
At the
hospital we ran two very demanding teaching days for 30
maternity health care workers, covering basic teaching
skills and management of obstetric emergencies and
resuscitation of babies.
A
colleague and I were fortunate to visit some of the remote
rural health centres in the district. It was a long,
dusty, bumpy ride with dangerous road conditions to reach
these areas. The conditions in these peripheral clinics
were shocking. Termite-ridden door and window frames (no
glass), no privacy, sticks secured to a trolley used as
intravenous poles. One clinic actually had bats hanging
from a hole above the ‘make do’ delivery bed!
When I asked the midwife we met what would happen
in an unexpected emergency, she said that a woman could be
taken on the back of a motorbike to the hospital three
hours away, if there was a bike available!
Back
at the hospital, we went to the wards in the evenings and
danced, clapped and sang with the women. We ended each day
singing our own rendition of’ ‘Sing Hosanna’ with
words adapted to our cause!!
From
an account by Emily O’Connor
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