A trip with a purpose
Dunedin resident and Nottawasaga Midwives staff member Lilly Martin expected that working as a midwife in Haiti would be hard. She just didn’t quite realize what hard meant. Or that it could be so satisfying.
“I’ve travelled to impoverished countries before, but I’ve always kind of felt like an observer, or even a voyeur,” said Martin, in an interview meant to update all of those who generously gave to the trip she took last month with Kelly Metheral. “The experience in Haiti was intense, but it also felt so great to be actually participating in something.”
Metheral wasn’t able to sit in on our interview last week, but as Martin pointed out, her experience as a non-midwife was much different and deserves a story of its own. She did tell us though, of the pair’s first arrival at the hospital that Midwives for Haiti do their work out of.
The nurse who greeted them had a woman in labour in the delivery room, and in that instant was glad to have the sudden assistance of “two midwives!” Minutes later, and with Martin making sure the situation merited it, Metheral had the chance to catch a baby for the first time in her life.
“She was a little pale, but she did a great job,” said Martin, laughing.
Later on in the trip, when Martin was doing her required night shift on the hospital floor, things weren’t so frivolous. The electricity was on but dim, and Martin did her work with a headlamp on. The three wards – one for prenatal, one for postpartum and one for post op, all of them with several beds and little in the way of curtains – were busy, and in the delivery area, also boasting several beds but this time at least with curtains, several women gave birth.
Not all were without complications, either. People almost universally suffer from anemia in Haiti, and so many pregnant women are put on bedrest for complications early in their terms. High-risk births tend to follow.
Every time Lilly heard a car pull up during the night, she felt a hint of dread, wondering what complication might be about to walk in the door.
Systemic problems abound as well. All pregnant women must bring all their own supplies, right down to a bucket to cleanse themselves with. And should they need drugs, family members are sent to the nearby drug store to buy them, often at prices that equal several weeks’ salary.
But through all this heaviness, Lilly found light as well, especially through the work of the non-governmental organization that brought her to Haiti. Besides operating mobile clinics (in a pink jeep) and covering shifts at the nearby hospital, Midwives for Haiti’s main focus is a school that helps Haitian women to become “skilled birth attendants.” A step below midwifes, skilled birth attendants are still equipped to help babies come into the world in a country where most of them just arrive with no professional help.
Martin showed us pictures on Facebook of the current class graduating, which was happening a few days before this article was written. She also showed us a picture of the long line of women lining up, wearing their finest clothes, hoping to gain a position in next year’s class. One of those women will be accepted, and will have her year’s tuition paid by members of the Creemore community who bought raffle tickets before Martin and Metheral left in late October.
The travellers also dropped off more than 200 pounds worth of medical supplies and linens at Midwives for Haiti and at the orphanage down the road, where Metheral spent some of her time volunteering.
In the time that Martin has been back, she’s been reflecting quite a bit on her experience, “letting it kind of settle,” she said, before she thinks about returning next year. She’s heading in that direction, though, you can see it in her eyes.
“It’s just really unfair that these women and babies have to suffer so much, simply because they and, even more so, their country are poor,” she said. “It felt good to help them, even if it was for a short time. And I’m grateful that people here did their part as well.”
