Blog
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Midwife Comes to the Clinic
March 15, 2010
The Maternal Child Health (MCH) services at the Clinic have been growing exponentially over the past several months, thanks in large part to the work of the Clinic staff led by its Nurse Midwife, Heryne. Since arriving two months ago, Heryne has been both doer and teacher. She unhesitatingly gets up in the middle of the night for a delivery or an emergency, or runs off to a village to attend to an emergency such as a miscarriage or post-partum hemmorage. She has also spent her time passing on her skills to the other Clinic staff as well as Traditional Birth Attendants, who sit in with her on consultations, exams, and antenatal care (ANC) check-ups. These check-ups include a full lab screening for anemia, malaria, and other conditions, and most recently, HIV/AIDS counseling and testing. Next month, the Clinic will be able to offer ARV medicines to prevent the spread of HIV from mothers to their children. With her experience in HIV/AIDS services in Kenya, she will be a great leader in beginning this program at the Clinic. In a few weeks, the Clinic’s Associate Medical Director, Dr. David Reed, will be bringing over ultrasound equipment which was donated by Sonosite Corporation, and training staff in its usage.
The midwife’s efforts at building trust with the community through the Traditional Birth Attendants has shown big results. Prior to her coming, many women were hesitant for various reasons to use the Clinic’s birthing room and services, and often just a handful of women would deliver at the Clinic in any given month. In February, Heryne set a Duk Lost Boys Clinic record for deliveries with 10, plus she helped over a half dozen other women who came in with complications. Most were brought in by Traditional Birth Attendants with whom Heryne has now developed a great relationship. “These Traditional Birth Attendants, they’re so smart,” she says. She ended the month of February by dashing off in the Clinic’s new vehicle to attend to a woman with post-partum hemmorage, whose husband walked three miles to the Clinic to get help. The vehicle had just arrived the day before, and is the Clinic’s first.
March started off even faster, with two deliveries on March 1st alone—the first just after midnight, and another one 21 hours later. Right after the second delivery, Heryne and a Clinical Officer attended to a woman with a miscarriage, working into the night, and waking up the next morning for routine consultations.
The John Dau Foundation is now working to raise funds to complete the Clinic’s maternity ward, including constructing a recovery room for mothers who have recently delivered. The Clinic recently built a bathroom and shower for this as well. Thanks to its current donors, the Clinic has purchased a variety of important items for the delivery room including sanitary buckets, bed linens, and educational materials.
These are huge steps for an area where Maternal Child Health is considered priority number one—with maternal and child mortality rates among the highest in the world. With such services not available for more than a hundred miles, and in no place as remote as this, what is happening at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic is truly a model for what can be done to make a difference.
