Courtney Massaro

November 15

Most days (or I should say nights rather)—I forget I’m working in Haiti. We have normal, beautiful deliveries with happy, healthy moms and babies. I got to catch twins the other day (!!), and the first was breech—which was quite exciting/stressful for me, as breech babies typically are sectioned in the U.S. and so the breech delivery skill-set is a dying art. Sure we have the occasional loss of power, or we run out of gloves, but overall things at the maternity run in a manner pretty similar to how they would back in the U.S.

And then there are nights where I am harshly reminded that I’m in a developing country, in a hospital with limited resources, where standards of patient care are—at times—very different, and where things happen that wouldn’t occur in the developed world. Below is a sad, frustrating, and a bit graphic example of such a case.

Last night a woman was carried into the delivery room with an IV already in place and fluid dripping. She had been brought from another hospital that was about 45 min away from Cayes. She had had an obstructed labor for the past three days. As a result, when she arrived her baby’s head (the baby had died—how long ago no one knows) was right at her perineum, but wouldn’t come out. Her vulva was terribly swollen and she looked incredibly worn out (which was more than understandable given what she’d been through). She was still having contractions—probably due to the fact that she was getting pitocin through her IV—but they weren’t doing anything but causing pain.

We called the doctor on call to see what he wanted to do about this woman. It was clear to me—and the nurses—that no amount of pitocin was going to make that baby come out (unless the baby decomposed enough to be able to be pushed out with the pitocin induced contractions). I was concerned about her increasing risk for infection and for fistula formation—among other problems—and so was hoping the doctor would come in to perform a c-section (given that we had no vacuum or any other way I could think of to try to extract the baby vaginally). The doctor however, got mad at the intern for calling him, and said that the woman just needed pitocin and that was that. After the call, the nurses all lamented the doctor’s decision, but said that this was just how it was in Haiti—that women suffered. They were much more laissez-faire about it than I was—in large part I think because this is normal/expected to them, and (obviously) not for me.  I think also because I knew what materials we didn’t have, and how they could have changed the situation—and the nurses probably didn’t as well—that it made it that much more frustrating for me.

I struggled with trying to think of something we could do for her—but I couldn’t think of anything. (Being a new/inexperienced midwife is hard at times because I wanted to help this woman so very much, but have never been taught about how to address obstructed labor—I’ve only read about it and its consequences—and don’t have any experience with it (until now), or anyone to offer me advice as to the best treatment plan.)

In the end we—tragically—monitored the woman all night. She made no progress and didn’t get any rest because of her contractions. I happened to be at the hospital this afternoon (around 3pm) and saw her finally heading back for a c-section. I can only hope that she has no long-term consequences of this birth—though I’m not too optimistic about that.

I realize this is not an uplifting post, but it is a reality that any healthcare worker who has the privilege to work—or wants to work—in the developing world will have to continually confront. My hope is that with time the norms will change, and appropriate resources/trainings will be provided to decrease the frequency of such cases, and ensure that women don’t have to just suffer.

First off, an update on the two abandoned babies: they were not there when I went to work after my three days off. I was told that the girl (who was very cute and term) had been adopted, while the boy (who was a premi, but seemed very healthy—though of course small—to me) had died.

Working at HIC has certainly taught me a great many things, none more so than how to multi-task. I’ve gotten used to—though certainly haven’t mastered—watching the perineum’s of two women who are pushing wondering who will give birth first and if I’ll have adequate time to change gloves to catch the second ones baby, to do the admission paperwork while making sure that a resuscitated baby is still breathing appropriately, and to triage patients while checking frequently for the presence of the baby’s head of a woman squatting and pushing on the floor. I’m forever impressed at what the nursing staff (as they are the main staff that run the maternity) do every day. As I say I’ve gotten used to this type of work environment, but it still stresses me out and makes me anxious. They however, are so used to it and so good at balancing multiple patients at once, that I don’t think they even notice it at this point. I think it’ll be a bit of a transition to go back to the U.S. and for each patient to have her own room (instead of an open room with three tables) and to have to certainly still have to multitask, but in a very different way.

This week I had the pleasure of visiting the Maison de Naissance (MN), a birthing type center about 30 minutes from Cayes. MN is located in a tiny town pretty far off the main road and provides much needed services to the women in the area (many of whom would never come all the way to Cayes to give birth and so would just give birth alone, or with a traditional birth attendant). MN had 7 post-partum beds, a two-bed birthing room, provides prenatal consultation serves, and birth control services (among other services). It was really nice to be able to visit MN and see a different type of birthing environment. Because MN is smaller than HIC, it was much calmer than the maternity ward I’m now used to—though I was told I visited on a very calm day. It was wonderful to see what good care the midwives were able to offer the laboring women and those who came for prenatal consultations.  High quality clinics like MN are invaluable—in my opinion—to Haiti as they provide skilled birth attendants and health care services to women in rural areas who wouldn’t typically make the journey to the nearest hospital, but nonetheless need/deserve such healthcare. 

Courtney Massaro

October 26

My name is Courtney and I’m a Certified-Nurse Midwife and Family Nurse Practitioner in Haiti. I’m working and living in a town called Les Cayes (or just Cayes for short), which is in the south of the county about a 4-hour drive from Port-au-Prince. I’m working at the Hospital of the Immaculate Conception (HIC), which is the main public hospital for Les Cayes (and for a significant portion of the surrounding areas).

I’m quickly getting settled into life in Cayes, and think that I’m really going to enjoy my work and time here.

As some of you may know however, Hurricane Sandy developed this week, and certainly made my first week here interesting.  Cayes is right on the ocean—meaning at sea level—meaning that with lots of rain (i.e. daily, hard rain for 3 days straight) much of the town floods. The hospital—tragically—is not at all elevated, so it succumbed to the same fate as much of the town (see photo’s of me walking to work and the hospital). The largest building—which currently houses the maternity and men’s and women’s surgical post-op—is the lowest of them all. “Luckily” in order to get into that building there are ~1.5 foot high concrete walls (dams of sort) build into the doors—meaning you have to step over them to get into the building and that they prevent water from entering the building even if the hospital grounds are flooded. Despite these barriers (which were working) the maternity and the birthing room still had an inch of water covering it (I was told it came from underground and seeped through the floor tiles). We (the maternity nurses and doctors) worked for a day like this, but eventually the hospital closed and moved the maternity patients to a Canadian ophthalmology hospital on higher ground. It’s finally stopped raining today, so hopefully things will dry out quickly and we’ll be able to get back to HIC soon.

Despite the rain and the craziness with moving hospitals I’ve thoroughly enjoyed meeting and working with the nurses and doctors that I have. They provide the best care they can, given the resources they have available to them (which are pretty limited by American standards).

October 28

One of the things that has struck me about my work thus far in the maternity (we’re still at the Canadian hospital, although the town has dried out completely) is how family friendly it is. There is one woman on the service who has been hospitalized for at least 4 days, and 3 of her female family members (including a 1 year old) have basically moved into the hospital with her. They sleep in spare beds right next to the woman (who is hospitalized because at 20 weeks she’s been having contractions) and seem to just spend there entire day hanging out with her.

When I got to my night shift last night that woman’s family were there—as always—and there must have been 15 other visitors (of both genders) who had come to see their respective friends/family members who were at the maternity.

Most of the time the visitors are women—but we’ve had a couple husbands come to support their laboring wives. Those men have dutifully walked up and down the hallway with their wives supporting them when they have contractions, and in general have just been with them. Although the women are alone in the delivery room those husbands who are present are typically waiting anxiously outside and peer in as soon as we open the door (after the birth).

I think that it’s great that the nurses and doctors don’t mind family members sleeping in the spare beds, and on the floor when there aren’t spare beds (as was the case with the number of patients/visitors we had last night). Additionally, I really like that family and friends are so involved, supportive of the woman while she’s hospitalized, and in the case of births so excited about the new baby.

Sarakay Johnson

Courtney and I had the unique experience of helping a family in Mshenguville relocate their home. Mshenguville is an informal settlement within Munsieville, and the houses there are built on a hill. The houses at the bottom of the hill are in a flood-prone area with poor sewage facilities, and the families in these homes recently got permission from the local municipality to relocate to a different street near Mshenguville and move out of the flooded area. Mshenguville is sometimes referred to as a squatter’s camp because people come to the area to settle, claim an area of land, and build houses out of any available material. Because Mshenguville is an informal settlement, there is no government assistance in providing houses and resources for the community. The government simply gave the families permission to move and would not be providing new houses for the families, so anyone who wanted to move would have to do so on his or her own.

We had the opportunity of helping a woman named Celine and her mom with the moving process. We knew Celine’s mom from the GardenSoxx^® class, and when we heard they were relocating we volunteered to help. We started by preparing the site for the new house. We smoothed out the ground, cleared away the rocks, and leveled the dirt in order to create a solid foundation before the house could be physically moved to the new site.

A few days later, Celine, her family, and a group of men started the relocation process. They first had to disassemble the house piece by piece. Then they moved all the furniture, clothing, and pieces of corrugated metal that would be used to reconstruct the house to the new site that Courtney and I helped clear. By the time we arrived in the afternoon to help rebuild the house,  a great deal of progress was already made with the men doing the majority of the physical labor. Courtney and I helped hold a few pieces of metal in place while the men nailed it together, and we watched as the last side of the house was completed. Some of the metal pieces used to construct the house had corroded and could not be used in the reconstruction. The house had to be rebuilt smaller than originally intended because of a shortage of corrugated metal pieces to rebuild the house to its original size. Celine, however, remained positive that she could one day get more materials and expand her house, and she was glad to finally be moving away from the flooded area of Mshenguville.

This week we are compiling health education information and creating pamphlets for the community that will be kept at the Children’s Embassy. We had a meeting with the women in the Health Promotion Unit and discovered that there is a great need for the community to have general health information. Our preceptor asked us to create a series of brochures that would cover health topics such as nutrition and exercise, proper hand-washing technique, HIV/AIDS information, puberty, tuberculosis, and drug and alcohol abuse. We gladly agreed and will be creating different brochures for different age groups and making sure the information is culturally sensitive to the community. We will be writing the information in English and then people at the Children’s Embassy will translate the information to the various tribal languages spoken within Munsieville.

Also, this week we will be conducting part three of our research methods class. This will be the last part of the class, and we will be teaching Excel skills. After the last class, we asked the students to come up with their own short survey and then distribute it to people so that real data could be obtained. If all goes well, they will return with their survey results and we can input the data into Excel to be analyzed. We hope that the students in the class will leave with a better understanding of how to correctly develop and distribute a survey and use Excel to analyze the results. This way they can better understand the community in which they live.

It is hard to believe that Courtney and I have just over a week left in Munsieville. Our time is quickly coming to an end, and I want to savor this last little bit of time before we have to leave this wonderful community. Our sincere “thank you” to the Hope Through Healing Hands and Niswonger Foundations for helping make this incredible experience possible for both Courtney and me. We hope we made you proud.