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The Day a Mother Almost Died — And What It Taught Me About Health Systems
The suffering endured to give another life
“Help, help!”
The voice rang out in the distance—panicked, urgent. I stopped writing and looked up. A man and a teenage boy were rushing toward the clinic entrance, supporting a pregnant woman whose swollen abdomen suggested she was near full term. Her head lolled; her skin was pale. They were terrified. So was I.
I rushed to meet them and helped ease her onto a nearby couch for examination. As I checked her vitals, the signs were alarming. Her blood pressure was dangerously low. Her heart was racing. She was struggling to breathe.
When I placed my hand on her abdomen, I knew something was very wrong. The uterus was soft and unusually tender. I looked closer—and I could make out the outline of fetal limbs beneath her skin. There was no fetal heartbeat. A bedside ultrasound confirmed our worst fear: a ruptured uterus and massive internal bleeding. The fetus had died.
The urgency of the situation jolted the entire team into motion. We started fluid resuscitation, inserted two IV lines, and prepared for emergency surgery and blood transfusion. But we were working against time—and against the limitations of a severely under-resourced hospital. Some…
