I got the idea to write this article at 4: am in the morning, I had to accompany my neighbor to a health centre because she was in labour.Dire mothering moments in DarWe arrived at Amana Hospital, Dar es Salaam but we were met by a large number of women, also there to give birth. My neighbor was not given a bed, rather was shown a space on the floor to rest. I was witnessed this through a window as I waited for her to be received by health workers and admitted.That is when the idea to write about this came to my mind; I wanted to speak for these mothers who do not have space to voice their concerns for the government to take action. But again what came to my mind was to visit other referral hospitals in Dar es Salaam just to compare the quality of services. To my astonishment matters were worse at Temeke and Mwanayamala hospitals.Overworked, big-hearted professionalsWhen I talked to a midwife at Temeke, she told me that perhaps that was a much better day because in some days the pregnant women significantly outnumber the midwives that it becomes extremely difficult to serve them properly.In all these hospitals I was told that they have between 350 to 450 deliveries every day.I thought situation would be better at the Muhimbili National Hospital but there I found an even bigger number of women compared to the size of the ward, number of beds and that of midwives. These women had to sit up as the space would not allow for them even to stretch on the floor. There were three to four women allocated to one bed.I researched and wrote this feature article for about two months, looking at the real situation in maternity wards: from the size of the buildings, number of bets, mosquito nets, number of midwives and if they were enough, but I witnessed two midwives allocated to wards with over 60 women and not the number of women corresponding to the number of beds in a ward.I had many challenges while researching for this feature article including not getting cooperation from some hospitals therefore making it necessary to use investigative tactics to establish the reality in the maternity wards in Dar es Salaam City.I tried to go to the hospitals very early in the morning so that I could see exactly how many women attend the facilities, just before doctors discharged some. Then after this stage I started to interview midwives. Midwives, nurses on duty, doctors and finally I talked to doctors in charge of the hospitals. Stakeholders in reproductive health were also involved and government issued a statement about the problem.What I discovered during my research for this article is that midwives are really good hearted and do their best to help pregnant women but because they are few and the number of women increases every day therefore they get overwhelmed and confused who to start attending between a woman with complication on the bed or the one almost giving birth on the floor, on the bench or on another bed.Voice of the voiceless heardAfter my article was published in Mwananchi Newspaper on Sunday, the leadership of received many comments from stakeholders, the government and ordinary citizens, thanking them for highlighting the problem. The government appreciated the feedback it got and therefore promised to find solutions, such as building a hospital dedicated for women and construction has started.CCBRT had plans to build such special hospital for women, but the feature has moved them to have plans to complete it by end of 2015. Right now, the CCBRT maternity hospital is near completion.This is what moved me to submit this article; I only submitted one entry to the Excellence in Journalism Awards 2014, the category of Maternal and Newborn Health, a category introduced for the first time for the awards.A champion is bornWhen the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) announced the names of nominees for the Excellence in Journalism Awards, I knew right away which article made me win and I was very optimistic because of the good response the article received from stakeholders when it was published.Still I was unsure if I would manage to take the top prize, but when my name was announced as the winner I was filled with unimaginable joy and pride to see that my dream that I had since I was 10 has started to come to reality, 19 years later. I always dreamed of becoming a popular broadcaster and now it is all coming together through newspapers and through EJAT. In 2013 I was the first runner up in the category of excellence in reporting on HIV/AIDS.My biggest dream as a journalist is to see there is a world with gender equality and especially in terms of healthcare for women. My goal is to work even harder not just for awards but to do justice to my pen by reporting on issues that will bring positive changes for the benefit of individual citizens.But again, I aim to make sure that all that has been promised to those women are implemented while at the same time I will dig out other burning issues affecting pregnant women.Also I want to win bigger international journalism awards—CNN Africa Journalism Awards.
I got the idea to write this article at 4: am in the morning, I had to accompany my neighbor to a health centre because she was in labour.