The late Father Dick Martin of Burke’s Church of the Nativity (center) stands in front of the shantytown Shada in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Photo courtesy of Jim McDaniel
Meg Hanrahan of Burke and Melinda Engelbrektsson of Fairfax Station have each faced life-threatening complications with childbirth. Thanks to the medical resources available to them and “the grace of God,” said Engelbrektsson, they and their children survived. Many women in third world countries including Haiti don’t have the same opportunity.
“If I'd been in Haiti, we both would've been dead,” said Engelbrektsson of herself and her daughter.
Hanrahan and Engelbrektsson both attend Church of the Nativity in Burke, which has been sponsoring mission work in Haiti under the name Operation Starfish since 1998. Led initially by their late pastor Father Dick Martin and partnering with the international charity Food For the Poor, project volunteers have built over 1,000 houses, helped develop sanitation systems, dug wells and opened schools and greenhouses.
When Operation Starfish’s subsidiary organization Fish for Hope visited Nativity last spring and shared photos of midwives from the struggling Caribbean island country, Hanrahan made an instant connection.
“What kind of conditions do these women give birth in?” said Hanrahan. “It's got to be horrible.”
She wanted to do something more, focusing on improving the conditions in which women were giving birth. And while she hadn’t seen the conditions first hand, Engelbrektsson has been traveling to Haiti with Operation Starfish for seven years.
“I’ve seen the dogs and pigs and children all playing in filth and mud,” said Engelbrektsson, “and they're not sad. That's the most startling thing to me. They're a joyful people. It makes you just want to do so many things for them.”
AFTER FATHER MARTIN DIED, the Operation Starfish project leader Jim McDaniel connected Hanrahan with Engelbrektsson, who had already been working with Hanes to have donated underwear and undershirts sent to Haiti. Since she had been successful getting things down there (over 1 million pairs to date), McDaniel thought they could help each other.
The pair reached out to a doctor in Haiti, Dr. Eugene Macklin, to assess the needs of local women going into labor. Those range from the expensive and complex (like Doppler ultrasound equipment to check the position of the baby) to the simple and inexpensive (string for tying off the umbilical cord).
“We've had no luck in getting the large donations,” said Hanrahan, “but we thought this is one thing we can do, relatively cheap.”
The “kit” to improve cleanliness they were able to come up with includes sterile gloves, string, a scalpel, a bar of soap, alcohol swabs, sterile gauze, a large “chuck pad” to catch the afterbirth and instructions on using everything, translated into Creole. Buying most of it through the same medical supply company, the cost to Hanrahan and Engelbrektsson is just $2 per bag.
“But it's more than what they have,” said McDaniel, a Springfield resident. “And what that $2 represents really is a reduction in the risk of losing a baby through some problem that you wouldn't have any tool for or way of cleaning.
“And more than that,” he continued, “it’s the fact that the midwives who are trying their best, feel like there's somebody who wants to help, that they're given something from people who care about what they're doing and what's happening.”
THE TWO WOMEN raised about $1,500 in donations from the Knights of Columbus, the women of Nativity and other groups. On Dec. 20, Hanrahan, Engelbrektsson and over 50 volunteers from Nativity around Northern Virginia will assemble 700 of the birthing kits.
“This is really what we're supposed to be all about, looking for ways to help each other across the street and around the world,” said McDaniel. “It's a program that has found the potential in people's hearts to do good and has given them the tools to express that and make it happen.”
Then Hanrahan and Engelbrektsson will wait to get reports from their contacts in Haiti on how far their kits go in terms of aiding cleaner births. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization(WHO) reported the annual maternal mortality ratio in Haiti between 2008 and 2012 to be 630 deaths from every 100,000 live births.
But the women know they have to start small, and they have to start with one step. “Everybody deserves a chance at a safe delivery,” said Engelbrektsson. “Every child needs every chance, and if we can make a difference in Haiti, then we have to.”