For the 12th year in a row, Ruth Brighouse and Annette Borkent will be swapping winter in the Shuswap for tropical Guatemala. But the women are not going on vacation.
Brighouse, an obstetrical doctor and Borkent, an obstetrical nurse, will again share their expertise in the Safe Motherhood Guatemala Project.
The women have trained 600 people, beginning with the comadronas, the traditional birth attendants of the Maya people, and expanding two years ago to bomberos, the volunteer firefighters who also provide the local ambulance service.
While their destination is the larger San Pedro Sacatepequez, Brighouse and Borkent will be training another 60 people from outlying villages to attend one of two weeklong courses between Feb. 28 and March 15.
“It’s rural in the sense it’s an extremely impoverished area and they’ve never had a lot of funding,” says Borkent.
Brighouse and Borkent provide hands-on training, teaching birth attendants in the assessment of pregnant women, birthing skills and emergency planning.
“We teach assessment to be able to predict high-risk women so they can essentially counsel and share with families that they should be having their babies in hospital,” Borkent says, noting trainees are made aware of potential complicating high-risk factors. Trainees use models to practise different scenarios, such as a baby being born in the breech position. They also teach resuscitation of newborns, good hygiene and how to prevent infection.
“We’ve really been starting to see a change in how the comadronas are treated. They have been treated as lower class and blamed for whatever problems occur,” she says, noting that while they are supported in their own communities, they have been treated like dirt in local hospitals. “It’s just horrific, but we’re seeing a change in that they are starting to honour these women.”
Another step forward for the group is that a hired co-ordinator, who initially trained with the Safe Motherhood Project, is now a certified midwife and, along with a couple of other women trainers, has provided training since Borkent and Brighouse were in Guatemala last year.
The project originated when Borkent was in Guatemala with a medical-surgical team in 2001. A group of midwives explained their lack of formal training and asked Borkent to provide education to help lower infant and maternal mortality.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, Brighouse and Borkent will present “Maternal Mortality – Where Are We Now,” a slide show and talk in Room 130 of Okanagan College.
Brighouse will speak to the objectives of the 1990 UN Millennium goal to reduce infant mortality in the world by 75 per cent by the year 2000.
Borkent will address the Guatemala project and the changes the women have seen over the course of their program.
Admission is by donation. For more information, visit www.safemotherhoodproject.org.