Juba ‒ Midwives play a critical role in South Sudan, facilitating antenatal care, knowledgeable birth attendance, and postnatal care for mothers and newborns to forestall death and promote a healthy future for each mothers and teens.
Here is especially important as the nation studies one of the ideal maternal mortality rates globally, with 692 maternal deaths for each 100 000 are living births. For newborns, the burden is equally severe, with about 40 deaths per 1000 are living births. Many factors play a role, including a volatile context of humanitarian crises and climate-related health emergencies.
Whereas midwives are in brief provide and almost 60% of births take place with out a knowledgeable birth attendant, there is remarkable commitment among midwives to change of us’s perceptions and increase health facility deliveries, regardless of infrastructure challenges, human handy resource deficits and heavy workloads.
Mary Mania
Sixty-5-year-venerable Mary Mania has worked for 25 years as a midwife, most lately serving as matron at Torit State Hospital in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria State. Regardless of her administrative responsibilities, Mania peaceful maintains an active role in maternity care. Losing family participants to childbirth motivated her to pursue a career in midwifery, first via general nursing and then with specialized training.
Mania recalls working during years of political instability and unhappy health infrastructure in Darfur, Sudan, and then in Torit hospital. She has trained and collaborated with traditional birth attendants, sharing with them existence-saving practices regardless of the absence of formal education. Her passion for midwifery has remained intact, in the face of frequent shortages of medical offers, tools and even electricity. She often makes exhaust of torches in provide rooms or contributes from her acquire pocket when mothers cannot afford offers.
Beneath Mania’s watch, maternal mortality at the hospital has dropped from over 13 deaths in late 2023 to only 1 or two a year currently. She is well identified in the community, greeted in the market and remembered by infinite ladies and their families.
“Even when a village is inhabited by very few of us, a midwife have to be there,” she says. “Midwives are critical wherever existence begins.”
Kulang Jasenta
For Kulang Jasenta, a 42-year-venerable mom of 5 teens, the work of midwives at Torit Hospital has been a obvious and existence-affirming expertise. She delivered all her teens at the hospital and has experienced first-hand the care, respect and kindness of the midwives. “They assist you via labour, speak gently and stand by your aspect,” she says.
Jasenta now serves as an informal ambassador for maternal health in her community. She advises ladies to attend antenatal care early and to avoid home deliveries. “When they gawk someone carry safely at the hospital, they are encouraged,” she says.
Rose Keji
Twenty-eight-year-venerable Rose Keji has been a midwife in Torit State Hospital for nine years. She has witnessed ladies give birth at home and in makeshift health facilities in refugee camps, with out access to quality health care. These experiences inspired her to join the profession and make a distinction.
Keji’s motivation is deeply rooted in serving her of us. “Most services and products had been as soon as delivered by foreigners,” she says. “As a South Sudanese woman, I want to care for my of us.” Regardless of challenges including political insecurity, community resistance, low pay, and a heavy workload, she remains dedicated. She and her team sometimes exhaust cell mobile phone lights during energy outages and fundraise among themselves when patients cannot afford medication.
Her efforts are paying off. Keji has noticed a reduction in maternal deaths, an increase in hospital deliveries and greater awareness of antenatal care in the community. “When I walk via the market, someone calls my name or offers me a keepsake and I really feel proud knowing I made a distinction,” she says.
