On the night of November 22, 2008, Yatna Konyak, a 36 year old mother survived to live through probably the worst nightmare of a woman as she went into labour to give birth to twin daughters. It was a normal pregnancy with very few difficulties so Yatna did not feel the need to travel more than 35 kilometers from her village Wanching to Mon town in order to see a doctor. However, it proved almost fatal as the mother who had already given birth to nine previous children, (eight of them still surviving), did not realize the whole time that she was pregnant with twins.
On the fateful night, Yatna went into labour at around midday but it was at around 6:00 pm, that she gave birth to her first daughter. But they soon realized that there was another baby coming and after this, everything began to go wrong. In the absence of any doctor or properly trained nurse or even medical supplies, there was real panic in the entire village as the second twin could not be delivered.
The only hope for this family was another woman in the village, Tonglih Konyak, who had previously undergone a short training as a thia (midwife) long time ago but she had lost her job when the government decided to cut expenses on “a job that was not required now”.
Since the nurse was unemployed, she had no medical supplies or equipments but most of all she did not think she was capable of dealing with such a complicated case. For this reason, Tonglih refused to accompany relatives who had come to fetch her to assist in the birth of the baby. However, when the relatives came for her the third time requesting her to help out, Tonglih relented and accompanied them.
“There was something like a balloon which kept popping out but the woman in-charge there kept trying to push it in” says Tonglih adding that in her entire life, she had never seen anything like it. “I felt really scared because the mother had no energy left to push and I felt very inadequate to deal with the situation so I prayed to God that the mother does not die in my hands.” Tonglih decided to let the balloon-like object to fall out and a while later the baby appeared, leg first.
However, the story was far from over because soon the baby’s head got stuck and as the last option, Tonglih had to get permission from the father to save the mother even if the baby’s life had to be sacrificed. But by some miracle and a lot of patient caring, the second twin was born at 12:30 am, after almost seven hours of the first twin baby. But the mother Yatna is not out of the woods yet and is still suffering immensely from excessive loss of blood. Even after three days of giving birth, when this reporter had met her, Yatna was still unable to produce milk to breastfeed her twin girls while her entire body was swollen and tender.
Yatna is just one of the thousands of women in Mon district who has gone through near death experiences for minor complications in the absence in proper medical aid. In a shocking disclosure, it was revealed that the entire district of Mon with a population of 2, 59,604, does not have a single Gynecologist. One nurse based in the District Hospital of Mon disclosed that the only Gynecologist of Mon had been taken off to be attached to the better equipped Kohima some time back. “Now we refer all the cases that needs a specialist to Sonari (Assam)”, says the nurse on condition of anonymity. Another nurse also related how a pregnant mother who had come from the village all way to Mon had to be referred to Sonari. But unfortunately, the doctor in Assam was off duty and she had to be further taken to Sibsagar, by which time, it was too late and the baby was lost.
The greatest irony however, is that Wanching village, where Yatna had her near-death experience while giving birth to twin daughters has a Sub-Health Centre with a doctor and nurses officially posted. The reality though, is that the sub-health centre is lying deserted with no furniture, medical supplies or personnel and villagers disclosed that the deserted building was recently occupied by the GREF personnel while repairing the road to the village. Many other health centers in the district suffer similar fate with no resident doctors, nurses or medical supplies while the building lies in shambles. This kind of neglect has led to heavy encroachment of many of the hospital compounds and one such example is the Naginimora Primary Health Centre (PHC), where the hospital land is being used for cultivation by the local people.
As for Yatna, the ‘still-critical’ mother of the twins who now has ten children, the horrible experience has scarred her against having any more children but for that, the family who has no means of income, will have to spend more than Rs. 1000 to travel all the way to Mon or Assam for access to birth control.
This news feature has been produced in fulfillment of a Media Fellowship with the National Foundation for India.
