Running A Maternity

Hospital in BSI

are extracts from letters received in New Zealand from

Sister Lucy Money, a maternity nurse

who went to the BSI two years ago, to serve with the Methodist Mission on Choiseul.

THIS house is bedlam just at present —there’s never a moment’s quiet.

To start with, I have two new babies. One arrived about ten days ago aged six days on arrival. The father, grandfather and a few other male relatives brought her overland and took three days over the trip. She was in very good condition and weighed about 5h lbs. She put on eight ounces last week so I am quite pleased with her.

I’m bringing her up tough. She was put out to sleep in the bathroom at night, right from scratch and frequently sleeps right through from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Then exactly a week afterwards, a party arrived from Vurulata with the information that they had brought me another orphan baby (making a total of five, under two years old). I groaned aloud but was a little cheered when I discovered that it was a child of over seven months, not a brand new one. I was not at all cheered, however, when I saw the infant and asked a few more questions. The mother had died a few days previously of TB and of course had been feeding this infant from birth. He had become infected himself. He is a very sick-looking child, weighs about lOi

lbs. at li months, and is very limp and miserable. A native medical practitioner who has just been round on one of the government boats had a look at the baby before he was brought here and says there is very little doubt as to his diagnosis.

He is a very pathetic little chap with a nasty cough and a rattly chest, but he is not a bit shy and would be rather a pet if well. Meanwhile, of course, he is a bit of a problem as we cannot let him mix with the other children.

That is not the end of my family how ever. I have Ivy Bui (a teacher’s wife) here for a few months, together with her adopted child. She is a godsend of course, specially as she has taken over the sick baby at her own request and is looking after him for me. It isn’t a good idea from her point of view as she has a tendency to TB herself, but we are letting her do it for the time being and it does help me out of a hole. One of the younger girls is looking after Ivy’s Hena. He is a funny, cross-eyed little chap, but very sturdy now. He does not make any attempt at talking and he is terribly scared of white people.

Ivy is here to get some more maternity experience. The Senga folk are worried about the number of women who die in childbirth over there, and Ivy is keen to be able to help them.

One of the teachers asked the other day if his wife could come here to stay until her baby was born. There are al ready seven in the family and the youngest is still quite small. So he asked if I would have the youngest child, too, and the eldest girl to help look after it! They arrived on

Monday, so the house is almost over flowing.

Then I have two maternity cases—So what with one thing and another, life is a bit hectic. Also Muli, our senior kitchen girl, is away just now. She went home two or three weeks ago to look after her mother who was not well. The mother quickly recovered, but Muli did not show up again. Eventually she put in an appearance one day last week to say she was not coming back again. She said she wanted to attend to her garden, but we suspect that to be an excuse.

Mrs. Metcalf says either Muli is tired of work, or else she has her eye on some man.