Help for women and children in bangladesh, german doctors blog

Aid for women and children in Bangladesh

As a doctor in Chittagong: Mission diary part 5

Our help for women in Bangladesh takes place directly in the slum

Help for women is particularly important in Bangladesh, as numerous examples from my work as a doctor show: One Boy First-time mothers complain to me about the consequences of their caesarean section when they are presented for the first time, which is why hospital treatment is often rejected here. Therefore, of course, there is demand – the birth was only 17 days ago. I am somewhat concerned about the patient’s behavior and insist on examining her. Maybe the wound is messed up and she is ashamed? Somewhat embarrassed, the patient finally pulls up her clothes. And has no wound at all – I really looked everywhere. The translator gets angry and I wonder what’s going on. Did she fool me? Why should she do that? Or is she really so uneducated and didn’t even know what happened to her at birth? Did she think the episiotomy was a caesarean? Then what does she know anyway? Does she even know how she got pregnant? I take heart and paint a pregnant woman’s body with different arrows, gesticulate wildly and talk to the lady in my one-word English, which my translator only dismisses with a ‘forget about it’. But if no one has explained it to her so far, I see myself in the mandatory. It’s not that complicated. The woman understood that you can get either a normal or a special C-section in the hospital. A vaginal birth is then the normal C-section and the special C-section. But my explanation has probably reached her and hopefully she is now aware that only a stomach incision is a real C-section. Okay – all women in Bangladesh get a supposed C-section in the hospital. Now I finally understand it …

Help for women and their children is particularly important

A young mother with her little infant

A word about the abdominal examination: That you really look at the abdomen is anything but natural or uncomplicated – and a rarity for my male colleagues! Usually you grope around knotted pants, leather straps with small tin cans or empty cartridge cases with sayings, sari, sari knots and of course a smartphone – sewn in somewhere – with. Nobody wants to know what my hands look like after the office hour: there is chlorhexidine for hand disinfection, which makes a really nice film together … But now that I know what I look like after an hour of walking around the city, I understand that people don’t do anything for that and that there is no solution without further ado. Our case for women also includes another case, of which I do not know how often it repeats itself here. My colleague has already been told the same story: A nice 35-year-old lady with a child poses ahead. First, of course, we treat the child as always. Then it’s about the mother, she has ‘cough’. I ask and write and examine and prescribe. And then she still has vaginal discharge and pain and such. Oh yes. "How long?" – "4 weeks" – "And the man too?" – "Yes". The problem is then quickly brought up without crying or batting an eyelid: her husband has another wife, but she must not refuse him, as otherwise she will be punished and of course everyone will be affected. The man would also be angry if I gave him medication now and he wouldn’t take it anyway. How mean, or?

Abortions are illegal here

Then a 13-year-old girl joins the series. Perhaps the age is not exactly right, but she was certainly not much older: with an infant. "How so?" – my somewhat empathy-free question; what do I know, maybe it is a desired child after all, does not want to interfere in the cultural customs here, after all I am not the measure of all things. The translator asks and thinks, then finally says softly “Oh I remember! Due to abuse! ”- without words. Abortion is illegal here and probably takes place secretly or with some pills. The consequences can be treated in the hospital if you dare to go illiterate and ashamed at all. The patient is already outside the door, when I get a "crap, we forgot the banana!". All children are given a banana, and thanks to their baby I put the poor mouse in the adult role too; how stupid, right? I caught her and she still got the banana. Phew, at least that – I can’t think of more. The fact that the help for women in my report is currently overrepresented should not come across as feminist and be misunderstood, there are several reasons: first, the men prefer to go to my colleague and the women go to me, second, the men also tend to come with ‘right’ ones ‘Diseases (a lot of COPD or accidents) and less with a complex structure of social problems as outlined above, thirdly, there are a lot of children who are usually brought by the mother who then end up with me and fourthly, many men go to work and only have on Friday – the holiday – time to introduce yourself.

The situation is improving – but very slowly …

"Look, a camera!"

I think that the situation here has already improved considerably through the work of German Doctors over the past two decades; especially when it comes to helping women. Preventive measures such as the feeding program and education / training are certainly even more important for society as a whole as medical care for occasional diseases. You also get the impression that society simply does not place as much value on the individual – I feel that both his contribution to society and his well-being are assessed differently than in Germany. In any case, the supply of recent years has currently led to the fact that B. the hemoglobin level (red blood pigment) is actually always good in all my patients for whom I have determined it (over 10 g / dl); With further substitution of folic acid and iron, this state can be maintained and this generation already has much better cards. What is missing is education. Our local employees estimate that only about 20% of our patients can read and write, and about 30% of the children go to school. But if you don’t know what you’re missing, I can understand that illiterate people may find it difficult to find the motivation to learn to read and write, or to suggest it to their children.

The population explosion seems to have stopped

Contraception is an issue, many women use it and even in the slum you rarely have more than four children – the population explosion seems to have stopped. I recently saw a huge advertisement for the pill in the newspaper. Many also know the first day of the last rule. I think that T. already amazing and of course I’m grateful as a narrow-track hobby gynecologist for any information. So something is happening – the help for women is slowly but surely arriving. In Dhaka, they set up public rubbish bins last week. A lot is being built. There are unions that are increasingly working for the seamstresses in the factories. And ultimately, of course, it is the decision of the people here, in which form of society they want to live and which offers from outside they want to use – it is not my job to evaluate that. Finally, a few explanations of the street scene: It’s really brutally dirty. I could not imagine that air can be so dirty. If I stayed here for six months instead of six weeks, I would definitely have COPD. You could wash your clothes every day, by hand, of course. Hardly anyone has a washing machine – rather a housemaid to wash; Labor is so cheap. A few parallels to the stories from the Middle Ages can already be found here. It is e.g. Usually so that there are bicycle accessories only in one street / quarter. And then there are 30 Radl-Dantler. For melons you have to go somewhere else again and in the copyshop district there is an old copier in every shop and you get prints.