At a clinic in rural Tanzania, we
meet mothers who have lost infants to easily preventable illnesses caused by
dirty water and lack of access to basic latrines.
In
a bare clinic room overlooking a stretch of parched red earth, Aisha Mkude is
telling us about the loss of her fourth child, a boy, in January. The baby died
within a week of the birth after contracting an umbilical cord infection, she
says in her native Swahili. Aisha is convinced her baby’s fatal illness was
caused by dirty water, dug from beneath a dried-up riverbed by relatives, and
transported in jerry cans to the clinic’s delivery room for the birth. It was
used to wash the baby, herself, her clothes and the bedsheets.
This
is Mlali Health Centre, in Tanzania’s Morogoro region a scenic sprawl of bush and
palm trees lying at the foot of the country’s verdant southern Highlands.
Chickens wander in, while outside, a woman attempts to sweep away the dust with
a broom made of twigs. In the dry season it coats everything – cars, shoes,
clothes, hair.
The
circumstances in which Aisha gave birth here are unimaginable for most
Westerners. Early one morning, she had travelled from her village to the clinic
by motorbike taxi, stopping repeatedly on the unmade road because of the pain
of labor. Arriving at the tiny delivery room, she was told by midwives that the
clinic had no water: she would have to bring in her own supply for the birth.
For
Aisha, 38, this wasn’t entirely unexpected. The same thing had happened at the
births of her other children [three girls, aged eight, 13 and 16], when
relatives fetched water from a nearby river. But last January, she recalls,
things were even worse: the water situation was “very bad”. Two companions – a sister-in-law
and a neighbor had to dig down into the riverbed to get to water, using shovels
and buckets.
The
birth itself went smoothly but two days later, back home in the village, the
baby developed a high fever; on day three, back at the clinic, he was found to
be discharging foul smelling water from the umbilical cord. Antibiotics failed
to save his young life. By Kimena Nuhu.
