AFTER residing in the United States for more than 30 years, a Guyanese duo, born and raised in Mahaicony, Guyana, is on a mission of giving back to the people of their beloved country, in the area of Public Health.
Orita Semple and Avanelle Crawford Thomas, both Health Educators residing in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, currently operate the “Before and After Holistic Childbirth Services” in Georgia, and have been in operation for close to 20 years.
Excited about the prospects of bringing the programme to Guyana, the two women who have been involved in such health initiatives for close to 20 years, can hardly wait to jump-start the initiative.

Orita Semple, who, in 2004, came to Guyana on an HIV Care and Support’ initiative declares: “I have a passion for Guyana. I am very passionate about what I do and giving back to Guyana. I have been doing this for almost 20 years and I am never tired of doing it, because it is something I love to do.
I think that coming back home and working with the adolescents, would be superb, because that way, we can get them from the beginning, and so we will be able to prevent the likely problems. We are hoping that it doesn’t stop here, but we can take it throughout the regions of Guyana. I’d love coming back home and working with the adolescents.”

Avanelle Thomas who is the CPR Technician asserts: “I was born and raised in Mahaicony and left Guyana about 30 years ago. I live in Georgia and work alongside, Ms. Orita Semple, on other projects. We have the energy and we just felt that we can bring some of that training to our beautiful Guyana and it would benefit a lot of people. We’ll take it to the outlying areas as well. That’s really where we want to impact the community health workers and deal with the pregnant moms and others who have never had any formal training. It’s something that is part of the pregnancy process – Helping moms; helping babies and where ever the pregnancy is, we are able to capture those basic things,” Thomas said.

PROGRAMMES HOSTED
Recently, they made a big hit via A Maternal and Child Health Programme in Guyana, having just completed a two-day Childbirth Educator Conference at Grand Coastal Inn and three-days of site visits to various health centres in Region Four ( Demerara Mahaica).
The first workshop held from October 30 -31 at Grand Coastal Inn, was an initiative for adolescents and it was a Lamaze Training Programme. Lamaze Education, Semple explained, focuses on the pregnancy – from Conception to Post Partum, teaching the expectant mothers how to have a healthy birth. This takes into consideration: nutrition during pregnancy; complications and risk factors during pregnancy, postpartum; Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Labour and Delivery.

The second engagement on November 2 and 3, took the form of on-site Maternal and Child Health training sessions, conducted at Sophia and Grove Health Centres. It attracted 23 persons including nurses, midwives, medical doctors and peer educators from Regions Three and Four.
Both facilitators expressed sincere appreciation for the opportunity to lend their services to such a worthy cause.
The programme was sponsored by the Ministry of Public Health and had as its patron, Dr. Onika Scott, Head of the Adolescent Health Programme Ministry of Public Health.
Semple said that the idea was birthed during a visit to the International Organization of Migration, (IOM) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, conference held in May 2017. During this conference, Guyanese based in other countries were encouraged to bring their skills back to Guyana through business and entrepreneurship.

Semple recalls: “I met with Dr. Onika Scott and we talked about doing some Lamaze Training since the Ministry of Health wanted to change the dynamics of how the adolescent mothers go through pregnancy. The aim was to either help them change or help others to help them change their concept of what is a normal and healthy pregnancy. One of the suggestions was to have a Lamaze Class Programme, teach them comfort measures in labour and delivery and what to expect as they go into labour – the do’s and don’ts.
‘‘The programme essentially taught the participants comfort levels in Labour and Delivery … So we were able to demonstrate a lot of that or facilitate the midwives and doctors who are there to help these moms in labour and delivery,” Semple said.
“In addition, simple approaches were taught that may be easily and readily implemented in an effort to enhance what is currently done by the doctors, nurses and midwives,” Thomas said.

Childbirth Educator Training is intended for midwives, doctors and community health workers who are directly involved in the labour and delivery process. It includes a holistic approach to care from conception to Post-Partum in areas such as Lamaze (comfort measures during labour) Breastfeeding, Infant Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Signs and Symptoms of Labour, prevention of pre-term labour, prevention of infant death through Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and choking.

The training workshop was opened by Dr. Basir of the Ministry of Health, Men’s Health Department, who encouraged attendees to be open-minded. He also asked attendees to return to their various clinics armed with the knowledge gained, ready to implement the many ideas and areas of exposure. Dr. Basir expressed the hope that this training will bring about positive changes to the way the entire labour and delivery process is conducted.
While the Ministry of Health has an Adolescence Health Programme, what the training did essentially was enhance the methods they currently employ, making comfort measures a unique feature.