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  4. Sister Jacobeth Erinu: a midwife in Papua New Guinea
Sister Jacobeth Erinu

Sister Jacobeth Erinu: a midwife in Papua New Guinea

"Serving a mother and baby is serving the community."

A normal day for Sister Jacobeth Erinu starts with her preparing breakfast for her two kids. Her daughter, Waikilie, is four years old, and her adopted son, Wilfred, is just 9 months old.

Sr Erinu is a single mum - her husband died in 2021 in a car accident - so she relies on a baby-sitter to walk Waikilie to pre-school and mind the baby for the day.

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Sr Erinu with Waikilie and Wilfred.

Then she heads off to her workplace, the Bulolo Rural Hospital - luckily it is only a five-minute walk from her home. Many other women, including expecting mums, have to travel much longer to get there - sometimes all day.

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“Bulolo is a very isolated spot. The hospital is located around 5 hours drive away from the closest main city, Angau, where the large hospital is.

“Mothers are transferred to Angau if there is the need for a c-section, blood transfusion, or other cases where they need a doctor’s attention.

"Sometimes referrals are done due to limited medical supplies. But otherwise, childbirth happens either at home or at Bulolo.

“Most of our patients are transferred by road. If a case is very severe, or if the Kumalu River is flooded and mud and debris is blocking the road, we can transfer patients via the local airline – but that depends on the weather, and is also affected by weekends and late hours.
“I have been traumatised many times seeing mothers delay transfer to hospital. I used to escort mothers to Angau hospital during the midnight hours. Some delivered on the way. I unfortunately lost two mothers.”

The Safety Delivery App

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Welcome to Bulolo

“This is my fifth year of working as a midwife at Bulolo. I graduated from midwifery training in 2018.

"I am the only clinical midwife working in this hospital, looking after the labour ward and maternal and child health programs.

“Due to staff shortages, I sometimes work alone doing whole shifts by myself, taking care of five wards, the outpatient department, and the emergency department.

“I use the Safe Delivery App on my phone, and it has been very helpful to me. I use the videos, the action cards, the drug list, and the instructions for practical procedures. I use it to remain up to date and have a reliable readily available reference tool for basic emergency obstetrics care and training."

The Safe Delivery App, developed by Maternity Foundation (Denmark), is a smartphone application that provides skilled birth attendants with direct and instant access to evidence-based, up-to-date, clinical guidelines on Basic Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care.

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Actual screens on eclampsia in the Safe Delivery App referred to by Sr Erinu.

“I have referred to the app when dealing with cases of eclampsia, maternal sepsis, prolonged labour, and low birth weight. One day that stands out in my mind is a case of eclampsia. It was almost a tragedy.”

Eclampsia is seizures occurring in pregnant women. Symptoms of eclampsia are high blood pressure, headaches, blurry vision and convulsions. Eclampsia is a rare but serious condition that occurs in the second half of pregnancy.

“I had a woman giving birth for the first time. She had several fitting episodes at home. However, there was a long delay in transferring her to the facility due to transport issues, and when she arrived at the hospital she was in a coma.
“I ran to the labour ward. Firstly, I took her blood pressure. It was very high. So with the Safe Delivery App to refer to, I went ahead and managed the case as eclampsia."
“I’m happy to say we were able to deliver the baby successfully, even though the baby was not breathing. I saw him gasping, so I began neonatal resuscitation and he began breathing.

"The baby was of low birth weight, but we also used the app to advise on what to do for a low birth weight baby, and so were able to manage that.

"With care and attention, the mother survived also.”
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Sister Erinu at her work station at Bulolo Hospital.

“If all midwives, nurses and Village Birth Attendants installed and used the App, more mothers would have safe deliveries, and we could serve well.”

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“Most women deliver back in the village and come to hospital only when they encounter complications.

“Village Birth Attendants are trained to assist women at home in the places where it’s hard to reach a facility on time. Some of the Village Birth Attendants call me when they encounter complications at home.

“If all midwives, nurses and Village Birth Attendants installed and used the App, more mothers would have safe deliveries, and we could serve well.

“Because serving a mother and a baby is serving the community.”

We need your help

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Sr Jennifer Aremo (left), Nurse Jean Jim (middle) and Sr Jacobeth Erinu (right, holding her mobile phone to take emergency calls and refer to the Safe Delivery App).

We need your help getting the Safe Delivery App in the hands of more midwives.

You might think that using mobile phone technology in PNG could be problematic but that’s not the case.

Nearly everyone in PNG has a mobile phone. With small-scale power systems throughout rural PNG, even in the remotest areas, charging devices is also not a problem. 

And once downloaded, the Safe Delivery App doesn’t need connection to the internet to function. This is really important in PNG where internet access is patchy and expensive.

With your donation, we can arm midwives and nurses like Sr Erinu with the tools they need to save the lives of mothers and babies.

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Sister Erinu runs in-house training for her colleagues.

Your gift today has the power to help stop mothers and babies dying at birth in Papua New Guinea.

We know for certain that midwives like Sr Erinu, as well as other health workers in rural areas make a real difference – the difference between life and death. And now we also know that the Safe Delivery App can be a critical resource in saving lives.

In 2021 we raised funds to adapt the App for use in PNG and test it in the field. Now we’re ready for phase 2 of the project: getting it into the hands of the people who need it! 

It’s an incredibly exciting time, but we need your help to do it.

Donate today and help arm midwives and nurses like Sr Erinu with the tools they need to save the lives of mothers and babies.

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