Edna Chepchumba understands the agony and devastation of Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) in intimate detail. Her three-year career as a nurse in Mosool Dispensary, Pokot Central sub-county, has spanned around efforts to treat girls with infected wounds inflicted on them during FGM and helping mothers deliver, albeit with great difficulty.
For each of the over 300 deliveries she has conducted since 2016, all the mothers have undergone FGM. “Most mothers experience obstructed labour, get stillbirth babies and undergo severe distress. Babies born after obstructed labour develop breathing complications while the mothers risk developing fistula,” she says.
At the health facility, which is deeply tucked amidst thorny bushes, Edna has helplessly watched mothers with birth complications suffer. The dispensary has no maternity facility and Edna has had to convert an examination chair into a delivery bed.
Poorly equipped, she is only able to offer patients first aid and refer them to Kapenguria County Teaching and Referral Hospital more than 50 kilometres away. According to Kenya Demographic Health Survey 2014, of the 25 per cent hospital deliveries in West Pokot, an estimated 18.7 per cent deliver with the help of a nurse, 69.4 per cent are assisted by a traditional birth attendant, 2.6 per cent by a relative while 0.2 per cent deliver on their own. Edna has taken upon herself to educate mothers about the dangers of FGM, a step she hopes will reduce maternal and child mortality rates.