dr grace kodindo
Hope for Grace Kodindo is not about one doctor. It’s about hope for all women in Chad, and indeed in Africa as a whole. A hope that one day soon the world will regard them as equals with their counterparts in the rich West. |
Dr
Grace, as she is known, was our initial inspiration. Trained as
an obstetrician in Canada and Sudan, she could be working on a high
salary in the comfortable West. Instead, she went back to Chad,
to where she felt her countrywomen needed her more. She has worked
at the Hôpital Général de Référence
in |
In June 2005 she was the subject of a BBC
Panorama documentary called "Dead
Mums Don’t Cry". In the UK, millions of viewers saw how, in the
face of acute shortages and government indifference, the hospital staff
struggled to provide care for the women and babies in their care. The
documentary has been shown around the world, even to the United Nations.
The message is clear – why should women in Africa die while their counterparts
in the West live?
|
Grace
is involved with a research programme into maternal mortality, Averting
Maternal Death and Disability (AMDD) and also with developing
a long-term plan with the UNFPA
(United Nations Population Fund) for Chad as a whole. She is a recipient
of the Distinguished Community Service Award in Emergency obstetrics
Care from the International Federation |
of Gynecology
and Obstetrics in 2000. She is a founding member of Chad-PMM and ASTBEF,
a family planning association. She now works part-time in the hospital,
in a team of dedicated staff led by Dr Felicité Belingar. They
continue to care for women, in the most trying circumstances, even – as
often happens – they are not paid on time. (Left
Dr Felicité
Belingar)