Conversations With The Doctor- Tanzania
Labor Ward
Sengepema Designated District Hospital
Tanzania
February 2016
I recently went to Tanzania to visit a friend of mine who is
serving in the Peace Corp. She runs the labor ward at a district hospital. Here
are a few things she told me:
“A fifteen-year-old
girl arrives, complaining of pain. They cut her open from strum to navel and
find a 15-pound tumor attached for ovaries and liver. It was really gross.”
“A woman has been in
labor for four days before she finally comes to the hospital for help. As she
sits on the examining table, the doctor spreads her legs and the stench immediately
confirms that the baby is dead”.
“A woman asked me to
call her husband. She found out she was having twins and she knew her husband
would be angry. They cannot afford two babies. So he told her he was leaving
her. She was distraught. One baby was stillborn and the other baby is probably
not going to make it past a few days. So she will leave the hospital alone with
no baby and no husband”.
“A baby was left alone,
abandoned, near the hospital. The nurses took him and have been raising him for
the last few months. One of the doctors, a foreigner, is willing to adopt this
child. But the government regulations are cumbersome. It will take at least 2
to 3 years until the process is complete”.
“It’s a Catholic
hospital so we can’t give out any birth control but after three or four
C-sections we can do a tubal ligation because it’s medically necessary. So
that’s a good thing”.
“I had a woman who gave
birth to nine children and she had three miscarriages. I asked her if she
wanted me to tie her tubes. She said no she wanted more children”.
“Family planning is
not that easy. They want all these babies. At least all the men do and the
women don’t have much choice. There aren’t that many women who are willing to
stand up to their husbands”.
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| Hospital fees, all of which are paid in advance |
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| The Children's Ward |
“I don’t know who pays
the hospital bills. Women and children and old people are free. But they have
to bring their own food and that’s enough to cause people not to stay. A family
member will bring food for one day and then not come back in again. The patient
gets too hungry and has to go home”.
There’re 11,000 births
in a year here. At Christiana care in
Delaware we delivered 6000 babies in the year.
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| Waiting to pay their bills |
