On the eve of the Team’s return to Tanzania this month (November 2019), read about how Dr Moir found his 5th trip to Tanzania and why he keeps coming back. He completed his 5th trip in July 2019.
This was my 5th trip to Amana, an eagerly anticipated event in my annual professional calendar. As Jan says, it is such a pleasure to feel the warmth of the greeting from the doctors and midwives at Amana, many of whom we have known from our first visit. The labour ward, where I spent most of my time this year, is frantic and busy. And sad as some of the events are that we see, there is rarely a moment without a smile, or a laugh, as we work alongside our Tanzanian colleagues. The senior doctors and midwives have considerably more experience than me, dealing with emergencies and a long list of caesarean sections on a daily basis. I was kept busy helping out, assisting with difficult births, and teaching the many students and young doctors and midwives, several of whom travel from overseas to work for a few weeks at Amana. We learn from each other. I saw a few women, who with a little patience and occasional assistance, who were able to have a vaginal birth rather than a caesarean section, which would have meant that all their future babies would be born by repeat caesarean section. And on our second last day, we had a difficult breech birth, with a very unresponsive baby, who was immediately resuscitated by Jan and Chase, using exactly the simple methods that Midwife Vision is teaching to the staff here. Within two or three minutes, we could hear the baby crying loudly from the resuscitation bench, and he was returned to his mum in great shape. The one.
How can you help?
A cup of coffee cost $5 and we can buy a delivery kit for these mama’s. If you donate $5 per week it gives a gift of love to the babies and mamas.
Its not much to us but its life changing for the mammas. Next time you buy a cappuccino, or latte imagine one mama and baby and in that moment, you would have changed the world for one baby or one mama.