Our first night July 7th

Olivia and I had a “trial by fire” our first night at Vila Central Hospital Maternity ward. There were seven babies in seven hours and even more admissions. We stayed late to clean up and ended up on our feet for about 11 hours.

That first night there were only 4 of us altogether. Two midwives, Olivia and me. We did all the work in the maternity ward for our whole shift. There is no one else. No janitorial staff, no nurses, no other staff at all. This means that we admitted new patients, managed labors, caught babies, cleaned up, charted etc. it is a good thing that there were no babies in the nursery (also our responsibility) and none of the postpartum moms/babies (also our responsibility) needed us that night. I honestly don’t know what the midwives would have done without us that first night.

In this kind of environment you can forget about “continuity of care”. I was happy if I had seen the woman’s chart and knew her name before she birthed. Many times I found myself alone with a woman and with very little way to communicate. I would catch glimpses of Olivia in the other delivery room and wonder how she was doing and if I would make it through this night…

We left that night 2 hours after our shift was supposed to end, exhausted and thoroughly filthy. (Covered in “life broth” as Ching –Wei would later joke.) Thankfully we have not had a night as busy as that one since.