Source: Wide Angle: "Birth of a Surgeon"
Rural Healthcare in Mozambique Transcript (Document)
Aaron Brown: Since the civil war ended in 1992, Mozambique has dramatically reduced its poverty rate. But three quarters of the country still live on less than two dollars per day.
Most people live in small villages with no paved roads at all. The only way for them to reach the hospital is on foot.
Manjacaze is a small town in the southern Gaza province. After a cashew factory shut down in the late 1990s, many in the area were left unemployed.
Serving more than 175,000 people in the surrounding villages, the tiny facility does not have a single obstetrician.
Hospital administrator, Samuel Felisberto is all too familiar with the clinic’s power station. The electricity in Manjacaze is unreliable, and the power fails almost daily.
ADMINISTRATOR (subtitles): This is the generator. It’s very worn out, and breaks down a lot. We can repair it today, but tomorrow it will break again.
Aaron Brown: Surgeries are scheduled in the morning when power is more dependable. But emergency cases must rely on this faulty backup generator.
A new model would cost around a thousand dollars.
EMILIA (subtitles): Do you have any problems with gloves?
NURSE (subtitles): We’ve got a serious problem. We’re even sterilizing the gloves.
NURSE2 (subtitles): It’s a problem nationwide.
Aaron Brown: The hospital’s meager budget forces the staff to reuse even gloves.
NURSE (subtitles): All we want is material to work.
Aaron Brown: Relatives wait in the hospital’s courtyard. Having walked for days, going home for the evenings is not an option and many of the patient’s families must sleep outside.
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