–they need a midwife, says ‘Sister Eugene’, Guyana’s longest serving midwife

By Jeune Van Keric

“THERE is a great joy in bringing a baby into the world. The mother cannot do it alone, she needs a midwife.” So says Javitrie Eugene, Guyana’s longest serving midwife.‘Sister Eugene’, as she is fondly called by those in the nursing fraternity, has been a midwife for 42 years, having been tutored in 1974 at the New Amsterdam School of Nursing by the now deceased Paulene Daniels and Hettie Green.

Her association with this noble profession goes back 48 years when, on September 16, 1968, she and 28 other trainee nurses entered the service, becoming batch mates of what was loosely referred to back then as ‘Batch 27’.

By 1972, she’d become a Registered Nurse. Two years later, she became a Registered Midwife. She would quickly move up the ranks thereafter, becoming a Ward Sister in 1980.

As Ward Sister, she worked in all the wards at the New Amsterdam Hospital, and was later made Nurse-in-Charge of all the wards at the Mahaicony Hospital, where she successfully delivered her first set of twins.

ROLE OF A MIDWIFE
Giving the Guyana Chronicle a quick rundown of what the job entailed, ‘Sister Eugene’ said: “As a midwife, we were taught that we had to obtain special data from the newborn, such as the head circumference, length of baby, the status of the baby at birth, and the Apgar Score, which is an overall assessment of the baby.

“After birth and bathing of the baby, an assessment had to be done for abnormalities, such as imperforated anus and vagina, and baby’s eliminations. If 24 hours pass and the baby did not eliminate [urinate or defecate], it is worrying. I also had to examine the genitals just after bathing the child.

“I had one case (in which) the child had an imperforated anus. However, doctor’s intervention rectified the condition.”

‘Sister Eugene’ recalled performing a vaginal examination on a patient one day while a student midwife, and feeling something soft. “I was not certain what it was,” she said. “I called my midwife, and she, after examining the expectant mother, found that the baby had anencephaly, which is a serious birth defect in which there is the absence of the major portion of the brain, skull and scalp. This condition occurs during the embryonic development.”

One can well imagine how traumatising that must have been for ‘Sister Eugene’, but she didn’t let that unfortunate incident faze her. “I loved midwifery. I recall my first delivery of a female child; she is still alive, and is a pharmacist today.”

And call it uncanny, but many of the children she delivered seem to have followed her into the medical profession. However, there was this one little incident that, try as she might, she couldn’t seem to put behind her.

“My oldest patient,” she recalled, “was a 52-year-old. She did not want to carry the baby home, but I coerced her into doing so by telling her that baby will take care of her in her advanced age.”

It’s a prediction that was right on the money, as according to ‘Sister Eugene’, “That is exactly what is happening today!”

PRECIOUS MOMENTS
There were many other precious moments that she savoured. “I enjoyed doing rounds with the doctors. We used to be questioned by the doctors, and that helped us. When I wrote my midwifery examinations three days after my mother died, I took my mind to the labour room at the New Amsterdam Maternity Ward and that helped me.”

It’s a lesson she feels is worthwile sharing with other practising midwives. “Do as you were taught; practise what you were taught, so when it comes time for ‘exams’, you just reflect on your clinical practice and your theory.”

Another lesson is the importance of adhering to protocol. “One of the things that guided us,” she said, “was protocols. We had protocols; we knew what to do before the doctor comes.”

But life for ‘Sister Eugene’ was not just about delivering babies, as, at one time, she worked at the Skeldon Public Hospital as an assistant to the Ward Manager, before being sent to the Port Mourant Hospital to do duty as a Staff Nurse Midwife, and returning to the New Amsterdam Regional Hospital to do bedside nursing.

It was between 1986 and 1987 that she became a Health Science Tutor/Nurse Educator, having undergone training at the University of Guyana and the New Amsterdam School of Nursing, to which institution she would subsequently return as Tutor 1 and 2, then Senior Tutor, serving in this latter capacity until her retirement in 2015.

Looking back on those latter years, ‘Sister Eugene’ said: “I thoroughly enjoyed my career as a nurse educator. I was pleased with the successes we used to have. There were times when we did not get good results, but that was not often. We did much self-introspection, and that helped us, despite having few tutors in recent times.”

OVERSIGHT ROLE
As a tutor, ‘Sister Eugene’ was responsible for the oversight of the Psychiatric Nurses Practitioners Programme, which was a diploma programme run by the Dalhousie University in Novia Scotia, Canada, from where the first batch of 12 registered nurses received certification.
The objective of that programme, according to ‘Sister Eugene’, was to train staff to be able to recognise the symptoms of mental health, and ably manage them by using specific nursing skills earned during the two-year period.
She was also tasked with coordinating and managing the first batch of psychiatric patient care assistants, which came on stream four years ago; managing and upgrading specialised courses for Nursing Assistants; assisting with the training of Pharmacy Assistants; and investigating complaints from all the hospitals in Berbice.

MORE THAN A JOB
As ‘Sister Eugene’ would observe in retrospect, “Nursing is more than a job: you have to have a calling; you have to have a love for people; you need to put into practice that human touch, especially in midwifery, when people are in pain.”

She recalled several instances when her patience was put to the test, including being bitten on the breast once by a mother who was in labour.

“The patients’ lives depend on us, the caregivers; so if we don’t go to work when we should, then the strain will be on our colleagues, and this can affect the quality of care,” ‘Sister Eugene’ said, adding: “Nurses need to be punctual always. Be on time for duty, and be regular. We need to remember the Florence Nightingale Pledge, which is a daily reminder for all nurses…. We are humans, and we must err at times, but that must not give us the passport to do it always.”

Asked if she had a chance to do it all over again, what she would have done, ‘Sister Eugene’ promptly replied that she would have taken up the offer to study medicine when asked by a former Permanent Secretary in the then Ministry of Health.

“I said I did not want to do so,” she said. “He tried to coerce me, but at that time I had my family…. My two sons were small, and my husband was working away from home.

“I thought then that it would have been too long to be away from them; they would have needed my help in their school life. However, I have no regrets.”

Currently, ‘Sister Eugene’, or ‘Sister D’ as she is sometimes called, is very active as a Family Life Instructor, having been a married mother of two for over 40 years.
She also works with children in the Sunday School Department of the Grace Temple Assembly of God church in New Amsterdam, Berbice, and is the host of the weekly telecast, ‘Children’s Bible Hour’.

She was born at Plantation Foulis, West Coast Berbice, and is one of eleven children born to the now deceased Jaiwantee and Ramkellawan, both farmers.

She attended the St Alban’s Anglican School and the Ashram School in Mahaicony, where she received her secondary education. She currently lives in Pope Street, New Amsterdam.

On International Midwives Day, observed annually on May 5, Javitri Eugene was awarded for her long years of service in the field of midwifery by Taramattie Backer, Chief Nursing Officer in the Ministry of Public Health.

The ceremony was held at the St Francis Community Developers Headquarters in Port Mourant, Corentyne.