Nepal is one of only two countries in the world where women have a lower life expectancy than men. The Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in Nepal is 1 in 21, which is the lifetime risk of death due to factors associated with female reproduction. In Canada, it is 1 in 12500.
Yesterday, a 16 year old mother was brought in to the hospital by her two women neighbours. They had been with her at home 5 days ago when she delivered twins, a boy and a girl, who both died within an hour of the birth. The mother had very little bleeding, and the neighbour told us that both placentas delivered. The mother’s blood pressure and temperature were low and her pulse was high. An iv was started with antibiotics, since she likely had a postpartum infection. She had crackling sounds in her lungs and complained of back pain. She was so anemic and septic that she couldn’t lift her head off the bed.
There was a delay to transport to a larger hospital that could manage her care. Once we decided that I would pay for the ambulance ($1.40), we couldn’t find the driver for the ambulance. Then once we got an ambulance, we carried her to it as by this time, she had become unconscious and there is no stretcher. The feeling of holding an unconscious live person is different than holding a person who had just died...something intangible changed the moment she died. Trying to co-ordinate CPR inside a small ambulance, without the proper equipment, on someone who has no reserves to pull her back to this world, felt like a second and an eon. Along with 1410 other women worldwide that day,Kanchhi Lama died.
