Living Mindfully Fundraising Project 2015
Our fundraising project for 2015 is to help develop a maternity clinic in Eastern Tibet. This is a wonderful and lifesaving project. Over the coming year we will be holding events to raise funds as well as awareness of the current situation in Eastern Tibet. We will be posting events on our courses and events page and would love to see you attend. If you would like to contribute by being sponsored to complete a challenge such as The Great North Run or Coast to Coast Cycle Ride or would like to organise your own event just let us know.
Thank you for your support
Gary Heads
Maternity Clinic in Eastern Tibet
It is a sad fact that in these remote areas four out of every nine pregnancies will result in the death of either mother or child. Sadder still is that some of these deaths could be prevented with simple hygiene practices such as hand washing and cutting umbilical cords with clean implements.
Without a basic knowledge of maternal health, and lacking trained birth attendants to advise them, the lives of both pregnant women and their babies are all too often at risk. The proposal put to Tibet Relief Fund addressed the life-threatening lack of maternal health knowledge by providing basic health training.
Tibet Relief Fund has provided a grant that enabled basic health and hygiene training DVDs to be made. These are shown to villagers on portable players. Field training sessions on maternal health have also been held.
These sessions were given to groups of Tibetans including community leaders and practitioners of traditional Tibetan medicine. Following these sessions, trainers distributed resource materials, teaching aids and literature, along with birth packs containing specialised hygienic equipment, for the students to take to their local areas.
By providing these resources, trainers ensured that those who received the training were then able to pass their newly found knowledge on to other members of the community. In this way, many more people were able to benefit from the training of a few individuals!
As a direct result of this project, not only are survival rates for pregnant women and their babies increasing, but basic healthcare practices are now much more widely used. At follow-up training sessions, previous participants shared their enthusiasm for the programme and spoke about the difference it has already made in preventing unnecessary deaths in childbirth.
The costs and risks of childbirth in remote communities in Tibet
For one remote village in Tibet, the nearest hospital is between six and eight hours journey over difficult terrain. Transport can cost 1400 yuan (£140) and that is if one is lucky enough to be able to find a vehicle. Once there, it costs £120 to register, and without this money the mother will be turned away, even if she urgently needs a caesarean section or is in danger of bleeding to death. A caesarean section can cost £500. Mothers-to-be and their families are all too often unable to afford these costs and are left to hope for a normal healthy birth which, tragically, cannot be relied upon. One community leader reported that in 2011, out of ten pregnancies, five young women and their babies subsequently died.
Following on from the success of local training sessions, it became evident that greater long-term benefits could come through building a maternity clinic for nomadic communities in eastern Tibet’s high altitude valleys. Plans were set out, permissions granted and Tibet Relief Fund were again approached to see if they could help. In 2011, their spring appeal focused on the challenges facing mothers to-be in this remote area, the appalling mortality rates for both mothers and newborn babies and the urgent need for a clinic. Thanks to generous support the first phase of construction has begun. Building work began in October 2012 and is due to be completed in the autumn of this year. The clinic will provide birthing suites, a pre-natal check-up clinic and family rooms. To ensure this project continues to thrive, further funding is urgently required. Monies raised will be used to purchase equipment for the maternity wing, provide transport from remote communities and cover salary costs for trained birth attendants. As more practitioners are trained and go on to empower their own communities with skills and knowledge, this vital project will continue to improve maternal and child health among Tibetans.