A happy event at Guinebor II and though he may not actually be the 12 millionth Chadian, he will always be very special to his Mum, Anastasie, one of our nurses. Some time earlier this year Chad managed to achieve a tripling of its population from 4 to 12 million in just over 50 years since independence. It is set to double again in the next 20 years. Each women having on average 7 children must help overcome the worst under 5 mortality figures in the world ( about 20%). Al Jima is also smiling in the picture she has the satisfying job of helping mothers have safe deliveries, its a big job. Look at the map below, look for the reddest part, that is Chad; once again in the headlines for the wrong reason with a scandalous MMR (maternal mortality ratio) of 1.1 deaths for every hundred pregnancies.
So it is no surprise that our maternity services are becoming busier. They started slowly just over 18 months ago and last month we had 58 deliveries. this month will be even more. Forty four deliveries already is more than last years whole month and it is only the 21st October. It means plenty of work for Andrea, there have been 5 caesareans so far this month and lots of other cases needing help, close observation, forceps, oxytocin drips etc .
The first week of this month was
especially busy and Andrea worked for 88 hours, many of them at night. Clearly
this is not sustainable long term, so we have now decided that we will take alternate
weekends off. Any patients arriving requiring specialist obstetric or surgical care
will have to be taken to the referral centre in the city. This is not ideal,
but we can't work 24/7/365. It would however
be good to have more surgical members of the team, perhaps you could pray for
this.
Another problem is that the temporary maternity delivery unit that we created
from part of the operating theatre is becoming too small for the women in
labour and outpatients that are there every day. We have added an extra bed for
the women in labour and in the near future we need to find more space.
Meanwhile give thanks for the 4 women who have live babies after their caesareans
and pray for the unfortunate lady with polio who can't walk, her baby was
already dead when she arrived. At least her life was saved. She has always
crawled on the floor from childhood and has never had a wheelchair, we hope to
find way of making her life better.
We can also thank God for healing
of a baby with tetanus despite our minimal resources. She was born in unhygienic conditions at home to an
non vaccinated mother. She presented with severe spasms and unable to feed due
to 'lock jaw' at 6 days of life, Now
after 3 weeks of heavy sedation in a darkened room being tube fed she is breast
feeding again and will be ready for home
in a couple of days. It is good to know that
in addition to the sterile instruments and clean delivery room, all the
babies born at Guinebor II are fully protected against this often fatal illness
by vaccines either before or after birth .
