Cosmo City and the surrounding communities do not have any public health facilities, with the nearest public hospital being more than an hour’s drive away. Realising that she might be in labour, the lady undertook the journey early on Tuesday, 11 May, to hospital but was sent back due to the staff there thinking she was not yet.
She and her husband realised later in the day that she was indeed in labour and starting walking to try and find public transport to go to hospital. Someone in a car passing by saw them and, realising that they need help soon, brought the couple to Oasis – where we run a primary healthcare clinic on two days a week. Our Community Wellness team was, fortunately, having a planning meeting at the time. They phoned an ambulance…. but knowing that ambulances normally takes hours to reach our community the team started preparing for an emergency delivery.
Chantel, a midwife and nurse, then delivered the baby- a healthy boy – at 3.50pm with the help of Emay and Josephine. The ambulance arrived 40 minutes later and took the happy family to hospital. We look forward to welcoming them back at the clinic for the baby’s first immunisation in six weeks’ time!