A team of health professionals is taking their skills to remote Guatemalan villages for the 14th annual “Safe Motherhood” program.
Annette Borkent and Ruth Brighouse get as much joy from seeing Guatemalan birth attendants learn new skills as the women do from using their newfound knowledge to help birthing mothers.
The attendants, or comadronas as they are called in Mayan culture, learn skills of risk assessment of pregnant women, safe birthing and neonatal care in a very hands-on format.
From Jan. 28 to Feb. 13, Brighouse and Borkent from Salmon Arm, a nurse from Golden and a midwife from Revelstoke will head to Guatemala. This year, Salmon Arm Daybreak Rotarians Mary Scheidegger and Penny Brown will go along to provide admin support.
In Guatemala they will be met by Cenaida Juarez and Gloria Cutuj.
“Cenaida and Gloria have been instrumental in logistical support and ensuring good translation between Mayan dialects and Spanish and have helped us train more than 800 comadronas in the past 13 years,” says Borkent, who worked with Juarez to get the program underway 14 years ago. “For the past few years we have also included volunteer paramedics in our courses, teaching them the assessment and birthing skills they need ... This also allows the comadronas and paramedics to work together locally.”
Borkent’s first visit to Guatemala was with a surgical-medical team with Shuswap Lake Hospital doctor Maureen McTavish. While there, she put her Spanish language skills to good use by translating for the team of 40 health professionals.
As well, the RN with a special affection for maternity care went to a meeting held by Juarez, who was getting women together on a regular basis.
“These 40 traditional people who spoke several Mayan dialects all had these stories about all the things that had gone wrong,” she says. “And what would you have done, was their question over and over again.”
Unable to agree to Juarez’s request to help create a birthing centre, Borkent suggested an educational project, particularly since 70 per cent of Guatemalan babies are born at home.
“I returned to talk to Ruth and Maureen Curtis (former Red Cross manager) and we put this hands-on program together,” Borkent says. “I find it a real privilege to respond to the call, work with these women and see the joy on their faces as they understand what we’re teaching them and why.”
This year, they will be training 30 women a week in San Juan Argueta, in the highlands of Guatemala.
“We have always worked closely with the public health unit in each area in which we have been teaching and the success of the program continues to draw the attention of the government in a very positive manner,” Borkent says. “And we are receiving requests on an ongoing basis from other communities as they hear feedback from the health units of the areas where we have been.”
Borkent says the team will begin the steps to form a Guatemalan non-profit organization to open possibilities for much greater Guatemalan involvement and support.
Scheidegger, meanwhile, says Daybreak Rotary has supported the Safe Motherhood project for many years and Brighouse captured her heart with every annual presentation to the group.
“It’s a motherhood thing; it’s very important to help with maternal and infant health,” she says. “I am not a midwife or doctor but I can help in other ways.”
Scheidegger will put her photography and videography skills to good on multi-media projects.
“When we’re down there we’ll be trying to connect with other Rotary groups,” she says, noting the need for a hands-on Rotary group to support other projects. “The main priority is to help; we’re gonna be the go-fers and photographers.”
Brown is equally excited about the trip and looking forward to seeing a project in action that she has been hearing about for many years.
“I have been very moved by what they were doing and I wanted to see it firsthand,” she says. “I thought it would make a difference to go and see what’s really happening, to be able to come back and say ‘Wow, what we have been doing supporting this group is important.”
The team is a member project of Rose Charities Canada, a registered charitable organization that provides tax receipts. To donate online, go to www.rosecanada.info/donate/ and follow the prompts. Or, send a cheque made out to Rose Charities indicating on the memo line that it is to support Safe Motherhood Project. Add your email address for easy tax receipts and send to Rose Charities Canada, 1870 Ogden Ave.,Vancouver, V6J 1A1.