Transport Plan

Although we like to hope for those transports never to happen, they do.  So our job yesterday was to go downtown, buy a stretcher, and work out how to get a pregnant mama down the stairs to a vehicle and into it.

Along with some hilarious moments, we did get a real eye opener to what it might be like, minus the blood, grave concern, fear and adrenaline that comes with emergencies.

I was the mama, and tried to keep myself as limp and possible to let them see the real deal and some of the issues of working with someone who is not conscience.

It was a relief to find that the stretcher, complete with mama; fit through the doorways and down the stairs, because rearranging the whole birth room to accommodate an emergency is important.

Finding a way to make it all work is part of organizing the whole picture.  The next project will be rearranging the supply closet to get all the right tools, disposables, equipment and linens in their logical places,  There are not Kmarts or a Walmart just round the corner, so finding baskets, boxes or containers to hold all the items is more of a challenge.  Not sure what we are going to do about that yet.

Balancing the need for an authority structure, with education of both the midwives and the birth assistants has been pretty straight forward so far.  Lila is the midwife and I am her support/education source.  She does a wonderful job at maintaining order and keeping the right perspective.  It involves keeping the girls busy, making sure the jobs are all done satisfactorily, making the birth assistants feel like they are doing an important work, procuring a good workable board of directors that both she and the Mexican government will respect.  She also is able to exude a confidence level that even though she doesn't necessarily feel competent in the midwife task yet, she seems so to the Mexican people.  That is so important.