The day of rest?

Thank goodness that we are not Pharisaical in our treatment of the sabbath and that Christ was happy to heal on it! Following chapel and midway through breakfast Elisabeth ran in telling us about a woman who was in labour and was having eclampic seizures. We ran up and helped assist in the management of the woman. Amazingly and by the grace of God the child survived (during a seizure the baby is deprived of oxygen increasing the risk of hypoxic iscaemic injury during the labour process). The woman was  very young, having gotten married at 14. The women here tend to get pregnant within the first year of marriage - Elisabeth thinks that women should start taking prenatal supplements from their wedding day! It was very frantic and there were two other deliveries happening at the same time meaning that there was a reduced number of staff there to help. We returned to soggy cereal 2 hours later. Yesterday was much quieter. I did the baby checks for the previous two days deliveries-10 in total. I'm getting pretty slick at it. There will be plenty  more to do tomorrow. Neil went to theatre to see another c section and we were able to spend much of the day quietly reading. In the evening however, we were up seeing another normal birth and some simple resuscitation of the baby - warming and some help with breathing. So many babies! We keep learning more about the difficulties of practicing here. The hospital is given 2000 rupees for every below the poverty line birth that happens here - the families wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise- but the staff can be wasteful or will steal things, like sutures, that they can get money for. They don't understand that if the hospital runs at a loss it will affect their salary. Attitudes are so very different to what we expected. In India there is a cultural thing of finders keepers and if it is worth something then you are entitled to take it. Elisabeth says that when she first came here she was shocked at this and suggested discipline or firing people but it is ingrained in the way that people are and it would not change and just deprive someone of their livelihood. Now we are enjoying some Sunday peace before something else happens that we need to run for. J x