The Labor Ward

Last night I went with a student to the labor ward. The students here have to deliver 23 babies before they are done with their OB/GYN rotations. My friend and exchange officer Pablo has 5 more to go, so I asked if I could join him. We started at the labor ward here at the hospital, but there was only one woman and she was at 2 cm. We decided to try a clinic about 10 minutes away which also allows students to come. We got there and there were about 5 women, all at 4 cm or less. We decided we would stay for about 2 hours and see if any new women came, or things changed.

The women are cramped in a little room on little cots wrapped in fabric. Their husbands aren’t really allowed in the room because there are other women there, so they are all alone. The midwives are pretty mean, telling the women to “man up”. I couldn’t understand most of what the nurses said to the patients because they normally speak Twi, but the other students were translating for me and it was pretty bad. They midwives seem to be burned out and so used to this they don’t care about the woman’s experience at all. While we sat there, the nurses were watching a Ghanean soap opera. OMG the acting is so bad that I cannot begin to describe it. It was almost humorous, but mostly just awful.


We were there from 8-10:30 and we were just changed and about to leave when all of a sudden out of nowhere a woman was about to burst. We changed and ran back only to find that the baby had already crowned and was fully out within 2 minutes. They gave the woman an episiotomy with no anesthetics, practically ripped out the placenta and then sewed her up still with no anesthetics. That isn’t normal here, but I believe they had run out of the meds… The poor woman was screaming and howling, and all this time they dind’t let her see the baby! After they were down stiching her up, they had her immediately get up and walk back to the ward. I got to carry the baby to her! She was so cute with a full head of hair and I was naming her in my head. I was tempted to steal her but I decided that would be bad and I gave her to her mom.

After the delivery, we were getting ready to leave when the nurses asked us to take a woman with us to the hospital. She had been at 4 cm for the past 6 hours or so and was not progressing. The poor woman couldn’t get in touch with her husband to tell him she would be moved and she really didn’t want to go but she had to. I couldn’t believe the midwives would just put her in a taxi with us but that is precisely what they did. We got her to the hospital at about midnight and made sure she was all set, and she was so nice she kept saying “god bless you” and asked us for our phone number. We told her we would go visit tomorrow so I am waiting for the other students and I will go see how she is doing today. I’m assuming she had a C section, so I am excited to see her baby. I hope everything went ok.

So that is the excitement of my day. I think I should post one more time before I come home.