Teaching mothers in Africa ‘frustrating’

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33264, 29 June 1973, Page 5

Teaching mothers in Africa ‘frustrating’

I eaching mothers with no education about proper nutrition for their children was a very frustrating job, Miss Janet Baskill, of Christchurch, told the North Canterbury branch of the Save the Children Fund yesterday.

Miss Baskill is a nursing sister with the Church Missionary Society. She is on leave from j a missionary hospital in a remote area of Tanzania. Very few of the local women were educated, and they were unable to accept! new ideas, she said. At the daily classes at the hospital’s, child-welfare clinic, the staff, taught basic hygiene, and how to use the best foods, available. “Because very few of z the! mothers have been to school,! they have no idea how toj concentrate for even five! minutes, and they will not accept anything ’new. The! only way to get it across is! to just keep on repeating it! over and over again,” she! said. Language barrier The best method was to! use a better informed African! mother, whose child was! basically healthy, as an'

example. Language also proved a barrier. The local | language was difficult to learn, as there was little : written about it, but Miss Baskill said she was gradually learning from the people. The hospital was fortu- , nate that the doctor in charge I was an Englishman, who had i spent part of his childhood in Africa with his missionary parents. He knew the local language, and was invaluable ■ in helping explain to the mothers how to build an outride toilet to prevent the i spread of disease. ! Beaus and bananas Protein deficiency diseases, and other illnesses related to malnutrition were a health problem among the children. The staff worked hard to alter local eating habits. I Beans and bananas were the 'staple foods, but, because of ignorance, mothers allowed ’ the children to eat mostly 'bananas, which they liked, ■ and leave the protein-rich beans. The 130-bed hospital,',

)i said Miss Baskill. serves a population of 6000. The people were backward because their isolation denied them opportunities to progress. Initially a school, the hospital was opened in the 1940 s with a nursing sister, no doctor, and 25 to 30 beds. It now has a new, 180-bed building, new surgery theatre. X-ray room, and other facilities. Until the addition, the newest area had been the children’s ward for 35 children, mostly under five. There was also a home for about isix children who were brought in by their fathers after their mothers had died. Usually, arrangements were made for them to return to their families when they were aged about two and a half. African stafl' The hospital was staffed' almost entirely by Africans. There were eight African staff nurses trained in Tanzania, and about 32 local nurse aides.

Few Tanzanian hospitals had nurse training, but although the nurse aides at the missionary hospital usually stayed five years and became very efficient, they could not receive a certificate. “We are not a training hospital, so we can’t give certificates, and a certificate < to prove he has done some-1 thing is very important to an East African,” she said. * •