Bacc 2009 Series: A4-A5
Death in Childbirth
In a hospital ward in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, Fatmata Conteh, 26, lay on a bed, having just given birth to her second child. She had started bleeding from a tear in her cervix, the blood forming a pool on the floor below. Two doctors ran in and stitched her up, relatives found blood supplies, and nurses struggled to connect a generator to the oxygen tank. One nurse jammed an intravenous needle into Conteh's arm, while another hooked a bag of blood to a rusted stand, and a third slapped an oxygen mask over her face. In the corner of the room, a tiny baby - 3 hours old - lay on a bed, wailing, swaddled in bright - colored African fabric. "Listen! You must feel happy to hear your baby cry", said a nurse, pleading with Conteh to find strength. Three visiting members of a neighborhood church began chanting over Conteh: "Jesus, put blood into this woman! Thank you, Lord!" But as their chants grew louder, the nurses stepped back from the bed. Conteh was dead.
Some version of that scene is repeated around the world about once a minute. Every year, about 536,000 women die giving birth. In some poor nations, dying in childbirth is so common that almost everyone has known a victim. Take Sierra Leone, a West African nation with just 6.3 million people: Women there have a 1 in 8 chance of dying in childbirth during their lifetime. Here is the truly ghastly reality of maternal mortality: in 20 years - two decades that have seen spectacular medical breakthroughs the ratio of maternal deaths to babies born has barely bridged in poor countries. To be sure, maternal health has seen advances, with new drugs to treat deadly postpartum bleeding and pregnancy-related anemia. But in many places, such gains are dwarfed by multitude of problems: scattershot care, low pay for health workers and scarcity of midwives and doctors. 1n Mozambique, where women have a 1 in 45 lifetime chance of dying in childbirth, there are just 3 doctors for 100,000 people; in all of Sierra Leone, there are 64 government doctors, only five of whom are gynecologists. Millions of families have never seen a doctor or nurse and give birth at home with traditional birthing helpers, while those who make it to clinic - some being carried on bicycles or in hammocks - often find patchy electricity, dirty water and few drugs or nurses. Explaining the task of reducing maternal deaths, Sierra Leone's Minister of Health Saccoh Alex Kabia, who returned home last year after decades of working as a surgeon in Atlanta, says, "the whole health sector is in a shambles".
By Vivienne Walt, Times, September 29th , 2008, pp. 36-38.
Vocabulary:
Cervix: narrow part of the womb where it joins the vagina.
To stitch: to sew
Breakthroughs: important discoveries in scientific knowledge
To dwarf: to prevent the full growth of
Shambles: scene of complete disorder.
A. Guided Commentary
1) According to the text, what is the main cause of Fatmata Conteh's death? (2 points)
2) Referring to the text, give three reasons which explain the high rate of maternal mortality. (3 points)
3) What shows, in the text, that giving birth is a major health problem? (4 points)
4) Taking Burkina Faso as an example, say how maternal risks can be reduced or avoided. (5 points)
B. Translation
Translate into French from "Some version of that scene..." down to "...bridged in poor countries". (6 points)