Review of "Where Have All the Mothers Gone"

For anyone in interested in African health care and poverty this book seems compelling...



Where Have All the Mothers Gone?By Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese, MDEpic Press (Belleville, Ontario: 2004)Softcover, 176 pages, $9.95ISBN: 1-55306-762-2

Reviewed by Kathy Shaidle

Those experiencing post-tsunami compassion fatigue may want to wait a while before reading Where Have All the Mothers Gone? But don't wait too long. This book by Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese is essential reading for anyone concerned with the well-being of women in developing countries. Chamberlain Froese is based in Hamilton, Ontario when she isn't abroad, treating these women, many of whom suffer unnecessarily from easily preventable causes.She writes:
"From the time you had your morning coffee today until the same time tomorrow, 1,600 women will have died from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Most of these women (90%) lived in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Put another way, a woman in Africa has a lifetime risk of 1 in 16 of dying from pregnancy-related complications. In the industrialized world, it is 1 in 4,000. (...)"Incredibly, in the 20th century this stubborn scourge killed more than tuberculosis, suicide, traffic accidents and AIDS combined. More women died from childbirth complications than the number of men killed in both world wars."Many die from bleeding, infection and a shortage of skilled birth attendants. Others survive, only to suffer a fate worse than death:
"Most women who live in developed countries do not know what a fistula is. They are lucky; they will never need to know."A fistula is a devastating injury caused by childbirth. Women who give birth in poor countries where there is no skilled medical help may need a Caesarian section, but be unable to get one. Labour continues, the baby dies, and sometimes holes appear in the mother's urinary or digestive tract. As a result, the women cannot have normal bodily functions, and they become incontinent and smelly. Abandoned by husband and family, they are social outcasts."A fistula is a social death sentence," effecting an estimated 1,000,000 women worldwide, many in their early teens. "The surgical procedure that repairs the fistula was developed in the 1850s, yet it is out of reach for so many of the world's women, who lack obstetrical care."Dr. Chamberlain Froese modestly leaves herself out of the narrative for the most part, choosing instead to tell the stories of women she's met in her travels: Geraldine, whose "two year pregnancy" turned out to be a cyst; Faithful, who bows to social pressure to deliver naturally after two "unnatural" Caesarians, with tragic results; Juliette, the Ugandan dwarf whose first pregnancy presents extraordinary challenges.These and other true stories in the book make for compelling, heartrending and infuriating reading. You may well find yourself muttering prayers of gratitude for your own blessings. These are tales respectfully told, in crystal clear prose many "professional" authors would envy.Despite her admirable self-deprecation, Chamberlain Froese's extraordinary courage and compassion will most likely leave you inspired to help her continue her vocation. Where Have All the Mother's Gone? ends with a list of ways you can help. She works through Save the Mothers and isn't shy about soliciting donations, nor should she be. Chamberlain Froese also name-checks certain UN organizations and famous NGOs, and encourages concerned readers to lobby their governments to send more targeted aid.However, she neglects to recommend the one thing that would actually eradicate this needless suffering once and for all: free market capitalism, in the form of Grameen Bank-style micro loans and large scale investment.As John Blundell recently noted in a widely debated essay, "Africa's plight will not end with aid." The Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs declared,
"In many nations across Africa, the institutions we in the West take for granted are entirely absent. The people of these miserable territories are not incompetent. They are the same as us. Without the rule of law, private property rights and an infrastructure for basic transportation, water, electricity and phones, we too would be a broken, diseased and starving people."Africa's horrors are not solved by sending aid. The word 'aid' sounds kindly, even generous. It is pernicious. It mostly props up the bandit regimes. (...) At best, aid breeds a dependency culture; at worst it funds barbarism."What Africa needs is open markets where property rights exist, contracts can be enforced and exchanged can multiply. More specifically, Africa needs a period in which major Western companies take over either specific roles over long periods or perhaps even entire territories."After all, Blundell observes, great nations have been known to emerge from such 'imperial' enterprises:"Canada is basically the creation of two companies: the Hudson's Bay Company, based on the brisk trade in beaver pelts, and the Canadian Pacific Railway, a timber venture..."
# posted by Kathy Shaidle : 2/20/2005