Diary: Sierra Leone slum medic

[malkin767]

Medical staff at a clinic in the coastal slum of Kroo Bay, in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, are keeping a diary of their working lives for the BBC News website.

Here, Bintu Koroma, who is a midwife at the clinic, talks about traditional beliefs and troubled pregnancies.

Comments

[btani]

This reminds me a bit of an article I read for my Anthropology of Religion course - relating to women in factories, traditions regarding gender roles and work, cleanliness and boundaries, and mass hysteria. I know how important it is for someone to believe that they are being healed - I wonder, are the medics ever able to work along with the shaman and midwives and such to share knowledge or work together?

[sagefemme11]

The living conditions are so abominable, no wonder there is a vying among the traditional birth attendants for each birth fee. Sure wish the providers at the clinic there would find a way to reach out to the traditional midwives to educate them and raise their practices to a safer level.

I have a midwife friend who has recently stopped practice here in New york to volunteer time in Sierra Leon at a clinic there.

Those pics are so hard to look at, the raw seawage and pigs everwhere....