General
Source: Daily News
MANY women in Tarime District, Mara Region still deliver at home in the villages helped by traditional midwives because of poverty. According to Ms Maria Pius (73), many women having no money to go to the hospital, have been flocking into her home to give birth for free. Mrs Pius is a prominent traditional birth attendant in Nyamwaga village in the district.
The multitude of women in labour makes it difficult for Ms Maria to provide an expectant mother deserving attendance for a referral to a health facility for safe delivery. Unlike other parts of Mara Region, rural women in the district depend on unsustainable subsistence farming for livelihood, majority of them living below the poverty line.
"There are many women who are not going to deliver in hospitals and poverty is the biggest problem," Ms Maria told the 'Daily News' in an exclusive interview at her residence in Nyamwaga village, several kilometres away from Tarime town early this week.
Maria is now regarded as the best and highly experienced traditional birth attendant in Nyamwaga village and the neighbouring areas within Ingwe Division. She has been practising the job of delivering women since 1984 to date. Maria began the work at Isirii in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and later moved to her home village of Nyamwaga.
"I am now like a referral hospital because some traditional birth attendants have been referring serious cases to me and I have delivered many women," she says. "I don't remember exactly how many women I have helped to give birth but they are many because I have helped a mother to give birth to her children and her grand children," she explained.
She admits that there is no safe delivery at homes in the hands of traditional birth attendants. Moreover, she blamed poverty as the cause of expectant mothers going to traditional birth attendants. It is estimated that there are over 50 traditional birth attendants in Ingwe, according to local leaders.
But they operate without essential equipment such as gloves and proper beds to facilitate safe delivery. "Sometimes pregnant women came at late stages without even money to buy gloves and we were forced to help them in unfriendly environment," Ms Maria lamented.
She requested the relevant authorities to consider the possibility of giving rural villages ambulances that would rush expectant mothers to health centres, if the campaign to promote safe delivery is to bear fruitfully 100 per cent.
Ms Maria, however, thanked the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) for initiating a three years project aimed at promoting safe delivery in Ingwe division, among other things. AMREF, under the project tapped Tuimarishe (strengthening health service system), has educated about 50 traditional birth attendants in the villages on the importance of referring expectant mothers to deliver, at a nearby health centre instead of keeping them at their homes.
"AMREF tell us not to keep pregnant women at our homes. We therefore now refer them to the health centres. I even refer some serious cases to Tarime District Hospital," she said. The number of pregnant women turning up to utilise formal system before and during delivery in Tarime has significantly increased following successfully implementation of the project that kicked off in April, 2011 targeting 17 villages, which include Nyamwaga, according to figures available at the public health facilities in the district.
Ms Maria further cited what she described as poor services provided by nurses (midwives) as a major disappointment to some expectant mothers, who go to available health facilities in the area. "Unsatisfactory service given by our youths (nurses) is also another problem. They mistreat pregnant women with harsh languages," she concluded.