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Fiona with new baby Mia Murray White and parents Leanne
White and Warren Murray – but she’ll soon be
working under a straw roof |
The challenge of a lifetime
Midwife leaves the security of Highgate
to deliver babies in war-torn Sudan
A MIDWIFE is swapping the labour wards of a Highgate hospital
for a straw-roofed clinic in war-torn Sudan.
Fiona Laird, 39, a senior midwife at Whittington Hospital, is
giving up her job next month to travel to a refugee camp in
Darfur with Médecins Sans Frontières, (MSF), an
international humanitarian organisation that provides emergency
medical aid.
Ms Laird has volunteered to spend nine months delivering babies
and training people in Kalma camp – home to more than 150,000
displaced Sudanese from the civil war that has ravaged the country.
And instead of the high-tech services available to pregnant
women in this country, she will be relying on her hands, eyes
and ears and an old-fashioned Pinnardes stethoscope.
She said: “I’ve been told I’ll be seeing between
200 to 400 women a week in a straw-roofed structure in the camp
supported by wooden poles.
“Here you might see up to 50 women a week at most.
“Médecins Sans Frontières use medicines from
Europe – they try to offer the same standard of treatment
available to women in the West. But there is no electricity
in the camp so there is no ultrasound available. And there is
no running water.”
Among the women whose babies Ms Laird will help deliver are
several who have been the victims of rape. The number of women
who die during childbirth – in Sudan is 1.7 per cent –
compared to 0.01 per cent here.
Ms Laird will make the journey to the camp every day from a
base in Nalya, 20 minutes away.
Instead of the scrubs and Western clothes she is accustomed
to, she will wear long-sleeved, full-length gowns in accordance
with local customs, in temperatures reaching 50 degrees centigrade
in the summer months.
Despite the harsh conditions, Ms Laird, who will celebrate her
40th birthday in Africa, said her new job was the chance to
fulfil a life-long dream.
She said: “I’ve wanted to do this all my life but
I never felt I had the clinical skills. I always watched the
disasters on television and felt I should be there and not here.
The timing just seemed right.
“I applied to MSF in November because they are an independent
humanitarian organisation and they go to places that others
don’t. It turns out they are crying out for midwives everywhere.
“They offered me five different countries in December and
I chose Sudan.”
She added: “The thing I really love about MSF is that they
bear witness. They are not just a charity providing money. They
record the atrocities and what is going on because they are
at the heart of what is happening.
“Any area of conflict has its dangers. MSF takes your safety
very seriously. If at any point you feel your safety is compromised,
they will remove you immediately.”
Ms Laird, who is single, has already sold her house in Wood
Green and is staying with friends in Hampstead Lane until her
eight-hour flight to Khartoum, Sudan on Wednesday. From there
it will be a further three-hour flight in a light aircraft to
the desert base near Nalya.
With a 15kg baggage allowance for her nine-month stay, she has
already limited her luxury items to “an MP3 player and
photographs of my family and friends”,
While she confesses to having a few nightmares – “because
I have never been to a war zone before” – she has
no regrets about her decision.
She said: “I believe this is what I did mid-wifery for.
I feel really privileged that I am able to go.
“Lots of people want to do this but they don’t have
the skills that are needed. I am looking forward to meeting
the Sudanese women, training staff and living in a different
culture.” |
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