On my Skin
She opened the door of the health unit almost sensing something that morning. In the Rural Health Unit, about 100 kilometers away from the nearest reference center. A newly appointed doctor....and the farmers of the region saw in those hands a ray of hope. "The doctor listens to us."
Maybe this was the beginning of a cry about the future on her face. When she was in the office with another patient, somebody knocked the door, "Doctor, please come fast". The nurse was already gloved, a woman in great pain, laboir pain. Upon touching down the cervix, it was 5cm dilated. Fetal heartbeat flickering and Ineffective contractions.
Labor without progression was sensed. Oxytocin, orientations, everyone entering the small emergency room. Got everyone out of there to take a deep breath and called the 911.
"The ambulance can only get there in two hours, it is in another displacement." The calculation was not difficult... Two hours to come plus two hours to cover the 100km made 4 long hours. Can we handle it? Will the baby be born before that? We ask for priority, but the whole state needs priority.
Deep breathing, medications, salines, change of position, but still it is only 6cm of dilation in the first hour. The Fetal Heart Beat slowed down. They call the ambulance. "I need it for now." It doesn't arrive.
It did not come, it did not happen, it did not progress and it was not born.
Some colleagues would say, "it is her fault that she chose to work where she has no recourse". But is there a way to have a hospital in the countryside? To have an anesthetist team in the middle of the green of the corn? To have a team with obstetrician? Pediatrician? There, where the soy is planted?
Several will condemn "it is the doctor's fault, who went there," but would the unborn child stop herself being born or would the mother stop going into labor because they were in the countryside? Would the countryside stop existing just because there are no qualified professionals in it?
The baby was not born, the baby did not survive. Everyone hears the fetal heartbeat fade away without recourse, no training, no legislation, no doctor adequately trained for more than 60% of Brazil's population living in rural areas. While the ambulance did not arrive, a sigh, a tear.... A fatality? Could we have avoided this?
From birth to mourning. To err is human, to kill and to die is human too. But a doctor in the rural area without training is inhumane.
Warm regards,
Mayara Floss
Maybe this was the beginning of a cry about the future on her face. When she was in the office with another patient, somebody knocked the door, "Doctor, please come fast". The nurse was already gloved, a woman in great pain, laboir pain. Upon touching down the cervix, it was 5cm dilated. Fetal heartbeat flickering and Ineffective contractions.
Labor without progression was sensed. Oxytocin, orientations, everyone entering the small emergency room. Got everyone out of there to take a deep breath and called the 911.
"The ambulance can only get there in two hours, it is in another displacement." The calculation was not difficult... Two hours to come plus two hours to cover the 100km made 4 long hours. Can we handle it? Will the baby be born before that? We ask for priority, but the whole state needs priority.
Deep breathing, medications, salines, change of position, but still it is only 6cm of dilation in the first hour. The Fetal Heart Beat slowed down. They call the ambulance. "I need it for now." It doesn't arrive.
It did not come, it did not happen, it did not progress and it was not born.
Some colleagues would say, "it is her fault that she chose to work where she has no recourse". But is there a way to have a hospital in the countryside? To have an anesthetist team in the middle of the green of the corn? To have a team with obstetrician? Pediatrician? There, where the soy is planted?
Several will condemn "it is the doctor's fault, who went there," but would the unborn child stop herself being born or would the mother stop going into labor because they were in the countryside? Would the countryside stop existing just because there are no qualified professionals in it?
The baby was not born, the baby did not survive. Everyone hears the fetal heartbeat fade away without recourse, no training, no legislation, no doctor adequately trained for more than 60% of Brazil's population living in rural areas. While the ambulance did not arrive, a sigh, a tear.... A fatality? Could we have avoided this?
From birth to mourning. To err is human, to kill and to die is human too. But a doctor in the rural area without training is inhumane.
Warm regards,
Mayara Floss
Review by: Nisanth Menon
Translated into English by: Bianca Silveira
Translated into English by: Bianca Silveira
Posted and Edited by: Ana Júlia Araújo
Link to Portuguese text: http://balsa10.blogspot.com/2018/05/na-minha-pele.html?q=mayara+floss
Mayara Floss is a young doctor working in a rural area: Cunha Porã (SC), Brazil. She Co-creator of project 'Health Education League'. She is the creator of the Rural Family Medicine Café to provide a forum to discuss Rural Health – a forum for students, young doctors and experienced professors and GPs from all world. She is the student representative of the WONCA Working Party on Rural Practice. She also co-created with Pratyush Kumar the project 'Rural Health Success Stories' and writes a weekly blog of Popular Education, Arts and Health - the Ferry Street of 10.
