Lamu midwife dodges bullets to deliver babies in terror-prone Boni

She has dodged bullets in her terror-prone Lamu home just to help mothers safely bring forth new life.

In the absence of hospitals or even functional dispensaries in these villages close to the Lamu-Somalia border, Fatma Shizo, 70, risks it all to help pregnant women safely deliver their babies right in their homes.

The Boni women fondly refer to Shizo as "daktari" as she has seen them through difficult times when they could not access the much needed healthcare.

“She helped me have all my four children and now they are all grown. She is our daktari,” Khadija Shizo of Mangai says.

Frequent al Shabaab attacks in 2014 led to the permanent closure of Basuba, Mararani, Milimani, Mangai and Sankuri dispensaries all inside the infamous Boni forest in Lamu county.

The community suffers for lack of a defined healthcare system but the women, especially pregnant ones, bear the brunt as they cannot access pre- and post-natal care to guarantee a safe pregnancy and safe delivery for their babies.

Despite pleas from the Bonis for the government to revive the dispensaries, nothing has been forthcoming leaving the community unable to access healthcare.

Amidst all this, Shizo, a self-taught midwife from the Boni minority community which is among Kenya’s last forest communities, has taken it upon herself to help women deliver their babies.

“The sounds of guns and explosions don’t scare me because I know I have a mission to accomplish in ensuring babies arrive safely and mothers stay alive to nurse them. The government was not doing anything yet women and children were dying during childbirth. I do what I do because we have no one else,” she says.

The granny says she can’t quite place the exact number of babies she has delivered so far but says it goes beyond 2,000.

She traverses these villages on foot whenever she is called upon irrespective of the time or situation and sometimes even risking her life while at it.

During the 2014 terror attacks, the militants vandalised and torched the dispensaries, totally stalling them for close to eight years now.

Staff fled fearing for their lives and now the Bonis are their own doctors.

Only the Kiangwe and Pandanguo dispensaries in Lamu East and West respectively remain open but are marred with acute shortage of drugs and staff and are barely enough for the thousands of residents in need of their services.

They are also located hundreds of kilometres away from the most needy of villages in the Boni forest.

Shizo says she is trying to fill the gap left by the closure of the dispensaries.

The mother of seven who was born in Kiangwe village on the Lamu-Somalia border in 1951 says she has practiced midwifery from the age of 20 and has over 30 years of experience doing it.

“I learnt midwifery from my grandmother. I would watch her closely when she helped women deliver and I became interested. I would follow her all over and with time, she would allow me do it under her supervision,” Shizo says.

The Boni areas have only three midwives and Shizo is one of them.

However, because the other two are elderly and are barely able to handle the demanding job, Shizo has found herself traversing the vast Boni forest villages, delivering babies daily.

She however says the job doesn’t pay much despite its delicate and sensitive nature since most of her community members are poor.

The charges depend on the delivery process and how long it takes.

“I charge between Sh100 to Sh1,000. If the labour takes longer I charge more. Also, if it’s complicated, I raise the fee a bit. But I rarely get much because most mothers here can’t afford it,” she says.

Shizo says on a bad day, she goes home empty handed after countless rounds of helping deliver babies.

“If they have nothing to offer, we can’t force them. We still thank God for enabling the delivery and safety for both mother and baby,” she adds.

Shizo however urges the government to train traditional midwifes and equip them with necessary medical kits to enable them do an even better job.

While a small number of pregnant women can afford the journey from their villages to the King Fahad hospital in Lamu island which is over 100 kilometres away, for the majority, Shizo is a heroine who has saved many women and their newborns' lives.

Lamu is among the top 15 counties that contribute to 98 per cent of Kenya’s maternal deaths.

These deaths can however be largely prevented through pregnancy check-ups and hospital deliveries but due to the security situation in Boni forest, women can only hope for better times.

“In the meantime, I am here for them to offer the support I can. It would be better for the government to empower me so I can train more midwifes so that when I am no longer here, Boni mothers won’t suffer,” Shizo said.

Boni women leader Khadija Gurba urged the county and national governments to empower the likes of Shizo to continue providing the services even as they look into the sorting out the issue of re-opening dispensaries in their areas.

Despite it all, Shizo wonders why their dispensaries were taking too long to re-open to enable them access medical care like the rest of Kenyans.

“I am just one person and though I try, it saddens me that we have lost mothers and babies during complicated births. I still believe we need hospitals.”

-Edited by SKanyara