Personal Stories

Gloria, Tanzania

Delivering a baby in an emergency situation in the pitch darkness of the African night is humbly described as ‘unsimple’ work by midwife Gloria. Bubbly and busy tending her patients, Gloria 35, is an expert in such matters. In the remote Rufiji District of Tanzania, she has delivered over five hundred babies in a hospital so under resourced that until recent years, it was still lacking running water and electricity.

"At night, I would often be the only nurse on duty, so when a woman was in labour, I would ask the night watchman to lend me his lamp and I’d ask other patients to hold it for me,’ she explains. "It was impossible to see what was going on in an emergency."

For many years, this lack of resources meant that for pregnant women and newborns the chance of survival hung by a delicate thread, and made Gloria’s job a living hell.

"I used to see a lot of pregnant women and babies die," explains Gloria sadly. "There was a lack of medicines and trained medical workers. This area is very remote and the roads are bad. Women would arrive by river in canoes, sometimes they were simply too late."

Yet thanks to money raised by Comic Relief, Gloria has witnessed a revolution in the past few years.  The cash has helped Ifakara, a non-profit health organisation in Tanzania, to improve infrastructure, train medical staff and resource the district’s tattered health facilities. A few years ago, a similar project piloted by Ifakara, saw rates of child death fall by over 50%, and adult death rates fall by 18% in two districts.  Survival rates in this region are already increasing.

"In the old ward, we were in danger of the roof falling on our heads,’ says Gloria. "It was so old and rotten. It was packed in there, with two women to a bed and more on the floor. The women didn’t see the point in coming here."

Now it’s a different story. Thanks to Comic Relief cash, the wards and surgery have been transformed into modern, sanitized health facilities. Nurses like Gloria have been trained in surgery to save the lives of women and babies in emergency situations, and new solar panels means Gloria no longer has to work by the dim light of a kerosene lamp.  Women want to give birth here now.

"I never forget the smile on the woman’s face when she sees her child for the first time." explains Gloria, swaddling a sleeping newborn in bright cloth, "I’m very proud of our new facilities and training. Now I can do the best job I can."