8th July, 2011
Keji's story
Keji Selina Simon is a midwife at the Tali Primary Health Care Centre in South Sudan. She faces a number of challenges in ensuring mothers give birth safely, and understand how to best look after their children.
I started working in Tali in June 2009. It is interesting working here, but there are quite some challenges. People here still don’t know much. Only a few women come to the antenatal clinic in good time. Many of them come late because they would rather spend time at the mura (cattle camp). This happens more during the rainy season. This is a swampy area, so the women find it difficult to attend antenatal clinics up to expectations.They also eat poorly. We frequently experience cases of anaemia. We have to sometimes fix food for those in need.
The other challenge is to convince them to come and deliver at the facility. The women say they are used to delivering at home. Apparently, they want to squat and push to deliver their babies, which isn't easy for us because from that position, it is difficult to assess if by any chance the chord is on the neck of the baby.
Most of the women still need lessons on hygiene. We advise them when they reach the facility as we give them soap and water and ask them to bathe. For many of those who deliver at the centre, we have to find them pieces of cloth with which to cover the babies because they come with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing.
But even with these challenges, when we compare the situation with where we are coming from, there is progress. The number of those attending antenatal clinic has gone up, and more of them are trying their level best to be cleaner.
Now I can talk of many mothers who have come from the beginning of antenatal care to delivery. There are still those who will attend clinic but end up delivering at home. They say the place is far, and here, there is no public transport. For such cases, the TBAs (traditional birth attendants) bring the reports of those they have assisted with deliveries at home. We then send the TBAs back with mosquito nets to take to the mothers who have delivered. Those who deliver at the facility also get mosquito nets. We follow up to make sure the children are immunised. We tell the mothers when to bring the babies back and stress that it is important they do so. The TBAs also help by acting as health ambassadors. They identify and send mothers back to the centre with their children for immunisation.
Things are improving though - I have definitely seen changes in the attitudes of mothers through our help. They are ensuring their babies are protecting with the nets, and not always waiting for us to come to them to get their children immunised. The numbers of attending the clinic is gradually rising too - in the future, we will need more delivery rooms, and more beds.
We now attend to about 20 women at the antenatal clinic per week on dry weather. Previously, the average was about 10 per week under good weather.
Find out more about the health challenges in South Sudan