Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, Bangladesh

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Mrs. Saira Khatun – a rural Bangladeshi woman, delivered a dead baby at home and but her placenta was still retained after several hours of her delivery. Her whole family opposed the idea to take her to the local Health Complex to seek care. After 12 hours of delivery one of the health assistant who work in the Health Complex informed the manager the Health & Family Planing Officer about the ordeal of Saira Khatun and requested him to take necessary step for saving Saira Khatun’s life. There are no trained Medical officer –OG in the health complex, but at this particular billage there is one trained Anesthetist and two EmOC trained nurses in the hospital. They have all the necessary equipment for providing basic EmOC services.

UHFPO, Mo- Anesthesia and trained nurses discussed among themselves and agreed that they can save Saira Khatun by removing the retained placenta. They prepared themselves to bring her to the hopital. But Saira’s family members were not interested to send her to the hospital and were even ready to accept her death. To overcome the family resistence, the UHFPO informed the local chairman and police authority of the gravity of the situation.

The Chairman asked the doctors to make necessary preperations to recive Saira in the hospital and he spoke with the other village elite to convince the family to allow her to be taken to the facility. After much convincing, the family allowed Saira to be carried by the local community to to the health complex. Saira was very weak, semi conscious, and on the verge of fainting. She was also highly anemic. Saira Khatun was very anemic and needed transfusion of blood immediately. But the family was not willing to donate blood for her.

The UHFPO arranged for two bags blood from the hospital staff. With the help of the trained EOC nurses‚ UHFPO manually removed placenta with in 1 hour of admission in the hospital.After two days Saira Khatun was recovered enough to returned back home. Many people from the community came to the hospital to welcome Saira Khatun back home.

updated: 7/14/2004