As the country continued to lose hundreds of midwives and gynaecologists due to the brain drain during the economic meltdown of the past decade, many thousands of pregnant women and their unborn babies suffered.
Even today, despite the economy’s gradual stabilisation due to dollarisation, a significant number of expecting mothers experience an array of vulnerabilities.
A group of unrecognized people, the Traditional Birth Attendants, have played a vital role in bridging the gap left by the departure of professional medical practitioners.
A widow and mother of two girls, Rudo (19) and Tsitsi (16), Melody Nyakundangu (55), is a traditional birth attendant based in Epworth. Since 1998 she has handled more than 600 deliveries by women with various pregnancy complications.
“It started when I assisted Elizabeth Sibanda in 1998. This woman had had a scan and had been told by nurses that her unborn child was bridging (in a crossing position),” she explained. “I assisted her and she delivered successfully.”
“My work is not to call or attract women to come and deliver in my hands but to attend to emergency cases when asked to do so. As a believer I do not permit abortions,” she added.
Before her midwifery career began, she used to pray for women with infertility and miscarriage problems. Realizing that she and other traditional healers in Epworth were assisting significantly she helped form a group called Epworth Traditional Birth Attendants in 2010, which now has 200 members.
Elizabeth Gwati, a founder of the organisation, is the Chairperson, while Nyakundangu is the Coordinator. The group meets twice a month on Wednesdays at the local polyclinic to discuss maternal health issues with the Nurse-in-Charge.
The government’s policy to incorporate traditional medicinal work into the mainstream health system it saw it establish a National Traditional Medical Practitioners Council headed by a Registrar from the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare. The Council is responsible for registering and issuing practicing certificates to various traditional medical practitioners. Nyakundangu is the National License Inspector of the NTMPC and represents it at the Zimbabwe Country Coordinating Mechanism for the Global Fund.
She said members of the group faced challenges in carrying out their midwifery duties as they lack basic kits or tools. She also appealed to donors for help in building a shelter in which the group could meet at the Epworth Polyclinic site.
“Most of people we are assist do not pay us as they are poor and most of them are those who fail to book their pregnancy at maternal clinics,” she said.
Maternal user fees are $25 at the local polyclinic and $30 at Epworth Mission Hospital. Amai Moses, a woman with five children whose birth deliveries were all attended by Nyakundangu, described TBAs as vital resource persons who assist poor women at little and sometime no cost.
“Some of us who are poor have always delivered our children at the caring hands of Mother Nyakundangu,” said Amai Moses. “I only gave her a few dollars or a bar of soap to wash her hands since she would have touched my blood,” she added.
Nyakundangu said many of her clients were victims of domestic injustice. “Most of the pregnant women who come here are those ditched by their husbands or boyfriends and left alone to care for the pregnancy. And due to extreme poverty they cannot raise maternal fees,” she said.