Catching up with a graduate at Midwives for Haiti
Marie Charles is a Mobile Clinic Midwife, and part of the class of midwives who graduated in November. Every Mother Counts caught up with her to find out how she’s adjusting to her new role.
Marie Lurcele Charles was part of the class of midwives who graduated in November fromMidwives for Haiti midwifery training. We caught up with her to find out how she’s adjusting to her new role as a midwife working in the mobile clinic.
Why did you want to become a midwife?
To help the lives of moms and babies. When I worked as a nurse in a different zone where there were no midwives and I didn’t have experience, births were done by matrons. Women went through a lot of misery with the lack of training and having to be transported far distances to reach a hospital.
Often the mom or baby died. I was touched by those experiences. I knew that if I had the skill I could help those women.
What where you doing previously?
Right before working for MFH I was an Auxiliar in the Artibonite (a very rural area of central Haiti). Before that I was a primary teacher for four years in that same area. I taught to make enough money to go to school in Port-au-Prince to become a nurse. I’ve always felt vocationally called to work in healthcare. Once when I was a little girl one of our beloved neighbors was very sick (with what I can’t remember) and she needed help to go to the hospital so my family took her. At the hospital I watched a particular nurse help her. The nurse seemed really beautiful, graceful and helpful and I wanted to be just like her.
Where are you from?
The Artibonite area. When I finished nursing school in Port-au-Prince I moved back home to work in the community, as I’d always wanted to improve the health outcomes there. As I worked I noticed more and more that lots of women in that area were needing maternal care and I wanted to learn how to do that.
I moved to Hinche when I married my husband. And then I heard about the MFH midwifery program, got very excited, took the exam and got into the third class of midwives. Now I’m very proud to be employed by MFH as well.
Tell me a little about your family.
I have three young children; two girls and one boy. I had all three of my babies at Hospital St. Therese with a midwife and no complications. With my second girl, I was having some pain around the right time of birth and went to the hospital, got checked and realized I was already nine cm! My fellow mobile clinic midwife and friend Marie Ange was my midwife for that birth.
What do you like about working in the mobile clinic?
I wanted to become a midwife to save lives and I feel like I’m doing that in the MFH mobile clinic. I really enjoy working with moms who are having their first baby (G1 or Gravita One) and helping them breast feed. I like helping with IVs or things that the mom may need help regulating. I enjoy doing post-natal check ups- seeing a mom one or two weeks later. This is one thing that really decreases maternal and infant mortality. My favorite part of working in the MFH mobile clinic is doing pre-natal physical exams. That could be anything from evaluating the mom on her fundal height or the positioning of the baby in the uterus. Getting the word out in the rural areas is the most important part and then you can have more people come to clinic. With more resources we could always do more. We could provide more and better post-partum birth control, for example. Overall though, I really just like to talk to women about the importance of good care.
