The names of these mothers has been changed to protect their personal information.
Case study: Nina – 25 years, Kyabugarambo
Nina is a 26 year old, pregnant mother who came to our health facility for delivery, as her time was due. When the time approached, she began to get her labor pain, but she could not deliver her baby normally as she began to develop some complication and was struggling. It was also a hard time for medical personnel to help her adequately, as the mother was getting into critical pain. They had to make a fast decision either to refer her to the other health facility or not because our health facility have no other facilities like scanning machine, X-ray and cesarean section. It is also due to lack of these facilities, that the health center fails to diagnose the problems of the pregnant mothers earlier. The mother had to go through this trauma and pain as the baby was big and she needed cesarean operation to bring forth safely her child out. In our health facility, at present even this facility is not available. It was a tough time for the mother and the family, as they were regularly doing the check up with us, to agree as early as possible to shift her to the better facility to save the child and the mother. Since the other health facility is not nearby, and the roads are not very good, extra care had to be taken to shift them at its earliest, in order to save the life of both the mother and the child. If our health facility had these facilities our health personnel, surely would have saved both of them and prevented the mother and the family from going through this pain and unnecessary trauma at that critical moment.
Case study: Attie, 28 years, Kanyaganyagye
Attie is a young pregnant mother who was brought to our health facility in emergency for her delivery, and so was brought too late to the facility. The health personnel were also not sure of the condition and background knowledge of the mother with the child. The story is this; the mother was left alone in the house as the primary care taker had gone out for some purpose and the care taker delayed in coming back home, by then the mother had already begun her labor pain. Before she could be reached to our health facility in time, they tried some local medicines to allow her to deliver at home itself. Since they failed, and as the mother was in critical condition and they needed some medical help, she was brought to our facility. She also had to wait for someone to bring her to the facility which was very late and by then the mother had gone through a lot of pain and struggle. Since it was too late, we can imagine the state of the mother and the condition of the child inside. When she reached our health facility it was all over, the child was already dead in the womb of the mother. It was after a long struggle and pain; the woman could help herself to deliver the dead baby. It was a very tragic and sad moment for the mother and to help her and the family to accept the dead child. If our health facility had all the facilities for monitoring, our health mobilizers could monitor regularly the pregnant mothers throughout the 9 months, and it could have helped the mother to deliver safely and thus save the life of the child in time.
"We have managed to purchase some important instruments for the Maternity Centre, but more is needed." -Sr. Lincy Augustine