A Midwife in Haiti in 2010
This is a story about a situation that could have been prevented with adequate prenatal care, education, and attention; care that is severely lacking. So I got myself together, went back to school and recently graduated with a masters in nursing as a nurse-midwife.
Susana Vega, CNM, MSN sent this blog in to Every Mother Counts. It’s graphic and raw, so be forewarned that while this story is severely realistic, it’s not for the feint of heart. What it also does though is underscore why we feel so strongly about working in Haiti given the needs there.
Haiti — 2010:
Mother natures disasters come and go, in all their impartial destruction, but I’m a midwife today because of her and in that sad, twisted way, I feel the need to say thank you. Do you happen to remember that wretched earthquake that hit Haiti in January of 2010? Dead bodies littering the streets, thousands upon thousands homeless and huddled in camps of plastic sheets and mud flooring. How quickly we forget the latest tragedy. Never mind that there are still countless homeless with poor sanitation and lacking basic health.
No, never mind that. I want to take you back. Back to that January, January 18, 2010 to be exact, on a morning where a small group of medical missionaries struggled for organization and order in the midst of humid stinking chaos. An open-air church, exposed rebar, and old concrete painted Caribbean blue, served as our hospital; privacy and air conditioning were a luxury.
My morning had been full of leaking wounds wrapped in leaves, exposed bone and muscle tissue of feet and hips, and a slideshow of grim faces speckled with sweat. Four men appeared, carrying a limp body, young, female, a slight abdominal bulge noted; pregnant then. I was first to take her blood pressure while one of our OB/GYNs gathered supplies and put our translator to work for details. 180/100 in the left arm, lying down; shit. As the words left my mouth she began to seize.
“Scalpel!” shrieked the OB, “Help! NOW!” The team swarmed this mystery woman on her tarp-covered concrete bed. We kneeled, we huddled and leaned in and over, hands everywhere, shouting and barking and shouting. There was no anesthesia as the blade cut into her belly, no sterile field, nothing but an uncertain IV access that required my knee pressed upon her arm to keep her convulsions from dislodging it. A tube down her throat, air, air, air, and get antibiotics in her please! Finally into the uterus and the amniotic fluid and blood created a pool about our shins, soaking through our scrubs and somehow cooling our overheated skin.
“Transport is here!”
“Fuck, thank God!”
“Baby is breathing!”
“The Israeli group is ready for them!”
“Do we even have a stretcher?”
It’s amazing what can be done with sticks, tarp, and adrenaline-charged bodies. An old white truck served as our ambulance. Our NICU nurse cradling a, possibly 24-week-old, baby boy up front, the woman with her OB team in back, still huddled, still desperate to keep her intestines in.
And they drove away. It had been nine minutes. I never even knew her name. I don¹t know if that woman is still alive today. I don’t know if that baby survived. Last I heard he was sent to Miami, so lets hope. Lets hope. But this isn’t a story about a pregnant woman’s luck. It’s about not needing that luck to begin with. The primary causes of maternal mortality around the world include hemorrhage, infection, high blood pressure, unsafe abortion, and obstructed labor. In this case high blood pressure was related to eclampsia, the cause in up to 40% of maternal deaths.
This is a story about a situation that could have been prevented with adequate prenatal care, education, and attention; care that is severely lacking. So I got myself together, went back to school and recently graduated with a masters in nursing as a nurse-midwife. Is it a cliché for tragedy to inspire us? Perhaps, but to ignore the memory of blood spilled unnecessarily would be the greater crime.
Women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving. -Mahmoud Fathalla
