Grace General Hospital - Our Days of Grace Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Multiple births were a bad omen. This I dis¬ covered only after losing one apparently healthy twin a few days after delivery. Noting my dismay, my faithful Congolese midwife informed me that the heathen Bampendes never allow both babies to live, even if we should manage to send a pair home alive the village grannies would soon do away with one. This is why I especially prize my colored picture of a pair of beautiful, curly topped, chocolate colored, year old babies. Their mother came to us some time before the babies were due. Each morn¬ ing she listened to the Bible teaching of our old evangelist. Before many days she accepted the Christ of the Christian faith as her Saviour and Guide and she gave up her old fear-filled pagan worship of evil spirits. When her babies were born she believed that God had given them to her and she wanted both to live. Fearing the old village grannies, she remained with us for several months. Her return to the village created quite a stir. The babies were fatter and lovelier than any others. Surely these could not bring ill fortune to the clan. Thus reasoned the grannies and permitted both to live. These babies are a living picture of what can be done by the grace of God through missionary work in any heathen land. All three phases of missionary work were necessary to make their well being possible. Education was needed to give them a healthy diet and clean bodies. Medical aid gave them prophylactic treatment to guard them from the many diseases surrounding them. Evangelism changed their mothers belief in a heathen religion to a living Christian faith thus making their very existence possible. In spite of the present chaos in the land of Congo there remain many living examples of the fruit of Christian Missions. dfdaniioba — T Cosplta! and d fitrsingf CZTo njc This year the ninth annual Manitoba Hospital and Nursing Conference was held in the Royal Alexandra Hotel from October 18-20. During these three days many meetings, discussions and reports were heard. Tuesday morning Dr. Medovy spoke on the theme “Impressions on the Canadian Conference on Children.” He drew our attention to the neglected pre-schooler. Mental health was also discussed with emphasis on the individual approach. The afternoon session was devoted to the role of the Public Health Nurse in teaching parents the recognition and prevention of fire hazards. The latter are only examples of many sessions held during this conference. There were also many interesting exhibits to attract the interest of the attending delegates. I thoroughly enjoyed the one day I was fortunately able to spend at the conference; and hope that some of you who read this will have the opportunity of attending in the future. ELEANOR ENNS TWO A.M. IN THE HOSPITAL Outside this place of suffering and tears, A city sleeps in silence undismayed, Unknowing of a thousand lashing fears, By which the hours of dark are coldly flayed; The night lights gleam, and busy streets are still; No sign of life or movement is revealed Where lucid frost in beauty claims the hill, And distant shadows pattern snowy field. Within this place, the tide of life sweeps on: From birth to death, through tragic interlude. There is no rest, and footsteps until dawn Will beat upon my brain in tumult rude. The quarter hour: Dear God help me to sleep Forgetful of how slowly minutes creep. We cannot lift the veil which hides the future, We cannot see the path which must be trod. We only know the Way of Faith leads upward And ends at last in Light and Love and God. We cannot tell how many rugged mountains Or shadowed valleys we shall have to cross, We only know, the Lord our hand enfolding And leading us, the way will not be lost. The way before us all unknown, but ever trusting In Him Who lived this life and knows the way, We surely know His word and presence always Will courage give and strength for each new day. 73

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- - OL by Miss How different the world appeared from that position. Frothy, fragile, clouds cast dark shadows on the irregular landscape below. The bald tops of countless hills merged gradually into the jungled slopes. Lazy rivers with half-concealed sandbars wound their indifferent way to the distant sea. Here and there were small clearings with clusters of green roofed huts. Barely visible were dark specks of humanity moving in and out among the houses. Suddenly the wheels of the Sabena D.C.3 touched the none too smooth, single runway and we had arrived in this ruggedly beautiful Kasai province of Congo. What would its people be like? How would nursing compare with what I was used to in North American hospitals? Quickly I discovered that there is no compari¬ son. To all the ailments of the temperate zone we added the tropical diseases and multitude of fears and heathen superstitions. The latter complicated even the simplest cases. Illness was always caused by evil spirits. Therefore, slits were cut into the distended abdomens of malnourished, parasite- infested little ones. Probably to facilitate the exit of the evil ones, concoctions of dung and dirt were carefully rubbed into the bleeding gashes. Rectal infusions or herbal poultices on shaven areas over the fontanelles were known to rid babies of the “fire spirits.” What these mixtures were I never discovered, but, they did lower temperatures, thus, masking normal symptoms and making diagnosis more difficult. The witch doctor and I were constantly on trial. If my “magic needle,” carrying some anti-malarial to the blood stream of a delirious patient, brought startling relief, then the jungle telegraph called scores of other fever racked patients to our dispen¬ sary. If, on the other hand, some patient died in our camp due to my lack of medical knowledge or else some reason beyond human control, then the white woman’s methods brought doubts and questions. Probably, the charms and rituals of their fore¬ fathers’ witch doctors were best after all. Nowhere was the battle against heathen super¬ stitions and ignorance so frustrating as in the field of obstetrics. Among the villagers in the Bampende tribe mothers were not delivered in homes for fear of contaminating them and incurring the ill favor of the spirits. Any woman in child bearing age must never witness a birth. If she did the spirits would curse her with childlessness—the greatest calamity that can befall any Congolese woman whose worth is measured in the number of children she can bear, therefore the almost naked filthy grannies would deliver the mothers in some deserted grass shelter or even in the high grass beside some lonely path. If the labour were long and difficult the methods used were the more horrible. About half of my maternity patients were those who had for hours or days been at the mercies of these midwives. As a - - A. Reimer last resort, often due to the frantic pleas of the younger woman in labour, the patient would be brought to our small inadequate hospital. Obstetrical nursing at home had not prepared me for the difficult deliveries that I faced almost daily. With the encouragement from government adminis¬ trators for all mothers to have hospital confine¬ ments our number of deliveries had grown to 70 or 80 per month. Our ne arest mission doctor was five hours rough driving away. I was grateful for two daily radio contacts with him which helped solve many a problem. After several sad experiences I realized that my best method of attack was to strengthen the pre-natal clinics. With careful examination I might be able to anticipate trouble and persuade the patient to go to our larger mission hospital before she was full term. These clinics were most amusing at times. Calendar dates meant nothing to our women. Every¬ thing dated back to the peanut planting season or else the millet harvest or probably the caterpillar gathering time. (Caterpillars were a Congolese delicacy which added much to their protein and vitamin deficient diet—they were eaten furry backs, insides and all!) These vague histories and my lack of midwifery training made my estimations on expected dates of delivery all off at times. If there¬ fore I had ordered a patient to the hospital weeks before the baby arrived her husband was most indignant and the baby would be called “Kunenga” —meaning “to wait.” Needless to say the Kunengas were quite numerous! With much campaigning through the village teachers and evangelists we had over 900 prenatal patients registered by the end of the first year. Within a radius of 25 miles we had 6 clinics. Women walked as far as 10 miles to attend. (When coming to the hospital they often walked 25 miles and re¬ turned 6 or 7 days after confinement). The clinic rooms were grass and mud huts with openings for one door and a window. These were blocked with curious, black faces struggling for a glimpse of the fantastic procedures within. A stethescope was pure magic. It made the unborn infant’s heart talk! Life size obstetrical charts were a tremendous revelation. They had been sure that there was only “one room” within their bodies and that the foetus literally fed on what the mother ate. Now, to their utter amaze¬ ment they saw that there were “many rooms’” inside of them. All that I tried to teach was accepted so slowly that I sometimes felt we were making no progress at all. But, when three years and over 2000 deliveries later I checked the statistics and found that we had sent about 97% of the babies home alive and healthy and that we registered only two maternal deaths I thanked the Lord for the privilege of serving Him there. 72

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