While abroad in Peru, I had the opportunity to experience a completely different culture than anything I’ve ever seen. In this culture, traditional Indigenous knowledge is valued, family connections are celebrated, and life is simply appreciated more. However, one thing that greatly surprised me was that despite the strong Indigenous presence, their traditional ways were not being met within women’s health care.
During my time in Peru, my group visited a lodge in Quillabamba with members from the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development (AASD). Aaron Ebner, Executive Director and Founder of AASD, mentioned how it is a requirement for women to give birth at registered medical centres in Peru. After hearing this, I wanted to conduct further research because to my knowledge, giving birth at home, on a woman’s own terms, is a traditional form of childbirth in many Indigenous communities.
Upon further discussion with locals that I met on my travels, I came across Gordy Llaqui, tour guide for Bonanza Tours. Llaqui explained how he was born and raised in Manu where access to medical services was limited. Because of this, he was not born at a hospital or medical post.
“We used to wait one day, two days, three days in the riverside just [to] take one boat,” just to reach the nearest medical services or stores, said Llaqui.
In an article by Matthew Puddister, he revealed that women who receive health services from Indigenous midwives rather than doctors could lose access to social assistance programs.
“Indigenous midwives are also prohibited by law from filling out birth certificates,” said Puddister in his article, Indigenous Midwives Exchange Knowledge in the Anglican Journal.
Llaqui explained how two of his siblings were not born in hospitals but were also delivered by home births. For this reason, all of them struggled to get the proper documentation that they required from the government such as a birth certificate and their National Identity Document (DNI). His sister, in particular, had problems getting her documentation because their family had a difficult time remembering the exact date and time she was born.
“My sister knows very well that in the paper is different date of her birthday… so basically, she has two birthdays,” said Llaqui.
Jenny Jordan, Executive Director of Sacred Valley Health, explained that the legislation that births must be performed by registered professionals was created in part with the Millennial Development Goals in an effort to decrease child mortality rates in Peru.
While the effort to decrease child mortality is a step in the right direction, it also means that people who traditionally deliver babies in rural communities are wary to continue practicing due to the repercussions it could cause.
I travelled within many different climates and to many different communities while in Peru. I was in the high Andes, in the lowlands of the jungle, in the Sacred Valley, in the capital of the country and in many other rural small communities. Each community was drastically different from the other and access to essential services depended on where you were.
In the high Andes, it can take hours of driving before someone in need of medical attention reaches a medical post, and hospitals are even further away. In the lowlands of the jungle, depending on where you are, a boat ride could take hours before reaching a town that could connect people with further transportation to receive medical services. Because of this, pregnant women have no other choice but to leave their rural communities weeks before their due dates in order to ensure they are near medical professionals before they go into labour. However, that is not an option for all women which leaves them no other choice but to deliver at home and because traditional midwifery is becoming far less common, women are left with limited access to someone who can provide safe births.
In response to this, Sacred Valley Health, a non-profit organization in Peru, is making strides to educate women on their medical rights. Sacred Valley Heath focuses on training promotoras de salud which are community health workers. These health workers are local to their communities and are taught how to provide health education and basic care within their home community.
Jordan explained how Sacred Valley Health was founded by a physician whose model for the organization was a mobile health clinic. However, they quickly realized that the most sustainable approach would be educating and informing communities about their healthcare rights and ways to complement traditional health and healing knowledge and practices.
“They [Sacred Valley Health] pivoted to the community health worker model, with the notion that if you can catch these problems more upstream, or people are informed and empowered to make decisions that impact their health, then you can really prevent a lot of the problems that you find downstream,” said Jordan.
As of 2020, Sacred Valley Health has been able to provide 7,105 Ollantaytambo community members with health education, 58 promotoras have been trained, and 66 new mothers and pregnant women have received support and education on newborn health.
Source : CalgaryJournal
