Discounted Queens

Medhen
our empowered, educated, funny, female guide at Gheralta
An Ethiopian Woman worth fighting for!  

I’ve been mulling on my trip to Mekelle now that I’ve been back for 10 days or so (was it really only 10 days ago that I returned? How can it be?  It feels like a lifetime and a whole new way of seeing the world, and yet it is only 10 days of new eyes, 10 days of a new heart, 10 days of a new ambition and life purpose?) Mulling is the wrong word; obsessing, dreaming, ruminating are probably better words. 

Since my return, I’ve been inspired to read more– read about global health issues for women.  I’m starting with the book Half the Sky.  It was published in 2009 and that’s about how I feel – 10 years behind on the topic.  The first few pages, the authors write in regards to sex trafficked girls, “their victims are perceived as discounted humans.” page 24 

I highlighted that sentence. It struck a nerve.  It summed up for me, to an extent, of what I saw in Mekelle.  Here are my reflections the day after I spent some time on the c-section ward.

Coffee, every day - every where - so good! 

“Yesterday, I was in a ward at Ayder and witnessed the worst patient care I have ever seen – not life threatening, but so shameful.  A cesarean patient who moved from sit to stand with a huge gushing of blood. The physiotherapist abandoned her while she was cleaning her white tennis shoe.  The attending doctor (intern, resident, who knows?) also left, the patient is standing, supported by her husband.”  She didn’t move, as she had a pool of blood at her feet, she was clearly in pain, she was bent over in a half flexed position.  Minutes later, the intern finally arrived back by her side, and moved her to a chair with what I felt was improper back supporting, possibly placing more tension on her already painful abdominal wall. But I left her there too.  I didn't intervene. 

In the same room, a woman who was also less than 24 hours post cesarean was hit and yelled at by the attending midwife who was nursing her scar – all while her new little baby was clearly not thriving next to her and not able to latch. Grandmothers and aunts were standing around, attempting to help.  This was horrifying to me, the foreginer.  

A physiotherapy treatment room

Catheter bags were faulty that day.  Literally pools of urine were on the floor, not being attended to. 

This was as the same time that I moved a bedside table to get closer to a patient only to have scattered a cockroach’s nest.  It was at that moment in time, that I had the instinct to run.  But I didn’t. I watched to see how all these different situations would be handled.  As my friend and colleague spoke over me a few nights before “girl, you’re growing up quick”.  I was getting my first breaths of education of what a different healthcare setting looked like in a poor country.

In one regard, these women were discounted humans.  In the American healthcare setting in which I work, probably each of those women could have sued for the care they received.  But what I also saw was this: "supported by her husband."  I saw so many women, new mothers,  very keenly attended by their young husbands.  I saw grandmothers, aunts, sister, fathers, uncles, sons, daughters - caring, loving, fretting, laughing with the new mother.  I saw brand-new babies being bounced by family members while the mother was sleeping, or being attended to. I saw oceans of fabric, and this fabric was being used in such innovative ways - wrapping babies, wrapping abdomens, carrying babies.  I saw fluids, and teas, and soups, and injera and stews - gifts of health - being brought in by caring family members.  I saw a community that was on hold, or maybe even bigger than that - in celebration -  while this newest of family members was being ushered into the world.  I witnessed more community, and people surrounding one individual than I've ever seen in my own community around one person.  I saw dignity, and pride, and love.

In another regard, I was also in the cesarean ward.  These women all had an abdominal surgery for their labor.  That means that each of these women were provided care by a health care professional that maybe even 5 years ago they did not have access to.  It means that their life, their baby's life, was intervened in a positive way - that obstructed labor, the death of a child, fistula, death by preeclampsia - all were prevented.  I was in a section of the hospital that literally was saving lives - the lives of mothers and babies.

Those conflicting, and complicated, and confusing experiences of good and bad, of disrespect and dignity - these reasons are enough of a why to get my butt into gear and say I want to go back. 

April and me, eating injera after observing a pelvic floor surgery