By 

The Associated Press

 

A hospital guard directed her to a tiny apartment in the poor suburb of Mbare nearby. The midwife: a grandmother with no formal training and claiming to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

Thirteen hours later, Kanyoza gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

“It was a miracle,” she told The Associated Press with a beaming smile. “I feared for the worst. I didn’t know what to do after finding the hospital closed.”

Mothers hold their babies delivered in a tiny apartment in the poor suburb of Mbare in Harare, Zimbabwe, Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019, with the help of 72-year old grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena. Grandmother Esther Zinyoro Gwena claims to be guided by the holy spirit and has become a local hero, as the country’s economic crisis forces closure of medical facilities, and mothers-to-be seek out untrained birth attendants.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Her baby was one of dozens delivered in the past week alone with the help of 72-year-old Esther Zinyoro Gwena. She has become a local hero as the southern African country’s worst economic crisis in more than a decade is forcing desperate women to seek out traditional birth attendants who often deliver babies using their bare hands with no sterilization or post-natal care.

Some worried Zimbabweans say Gwena’s work only highlights the collapse of a health sector once regarded as one of the best in Africa. Doctors have been on strike for more than two months, seeking better pay than the roughly $100 they receive a month, and nurses and midwives in Harare walked off the job two weeks ago.

Since then, Gwena said, she has delivered more than 100 babies and no mothers have died. She doesn’t charge for her services and helping stranded pregnant women is her concern.

“I never trained as a midwife. I started by befriending pregnant women at the church and then eight years ago I just started delivering babies. It is the holy spirit,” she said.

“I have had no rest since the nurses’ strike started. The work is becoming too much for one person. I am even losing weight,” Gwena said.

She said she has been delivering up to 20 babies a day in her two-room apartment.

When the AP visited on Saturday, four pregnant women writhed in pain while sitting on blankets on the floor in the tiny living room-turned-maternity ward.

The bedroom is now the “recovery room” where several women holding newborn babies huddled on Gwena’s small bed.

“They need the bed more,” she said. “I rarely get time to sleep, they are always coming in … in the middle of the night.”

Neighbors, relatives of the pregnant women and some of Gwena’s children, who help clean the blood, fetch water from a nearby well and cook, sat on a bench. Others stood in the packed room.

“Make way, another one is coming,” one woman shouted. A heavily pregnant young woman walked in carrying a small plastic bucket, blanket and bag.

Less than two hours later, the number of pregnant women had swelled to 10, their bags piled in a corner. More stood in line in the hallway outside.

“I was apprehensive,” said Grace Musariri, one of the women in line. “But I have already seen four women leaving with their babies in the few hours I was here. The fear is gone.”

The makeshift maternity ward contained little but boxes of cotton and gloves donated by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife, Auxillia, who visited on Friday after Gwena’s story made headlines in Zimbabwe’s state media.

Before her visit “I used my bare hands,” Gwena said. She asks women to bring their own razor blades, cord clamps and other items.

“My biggest challenges are space, water and protective clothing. I need help, and fast,” she told a team of senior health officials who visited on Saturday.

She told them she had delivered 15 babies overnight and seven more before lunchtime.