Prevention vital role in nursing the poor

By Scott Kara

Preventing young children dying is part of Barbara Caldwell's job description.

Every day as a practice nurse at the Otara Christian Medical Centre there is a good chance she will help a child with a life-threatening condition. In many cases the illness is preventable.

During winter more than 90 people on average walk through the centre's doors every day. Many people arrive too late.

Mrs Caldwell said many parents had a "fatalistic view" of a baby or young child dying.

"It's not that the death doesn't affect them. They accept this has happened but don't realise it could have been prevented."

Prevention is the obvious key to overcoming South Auckland's poverty and health problems, Mrs Caldwell said.

She stresses to parents the importance of immunisation, caring for their children and being aware of when their child is ill.

"Many parents push the child away too much. They leave them with an older child while they go out and that child doesn't recognise that the baby is sick.

"It is frustrating because sometimes parents put their own pleasure ahead of the needs of the child."

However, Mrs Caldwell has not given up on the parents. "We can't give up because you never know when something may click with the parent which could save a child's life."

It is a matter of repeating the advice they need to help them care for their children properly.

The Otara centre follows up every month on children who have been immunised and everyone who walks in the centre door is given a check-up.

For South Auckland midwife Tui Houpapa, bringing a child into the world is the easy bit. The hard part of working with many South Auckland families is hearing a mother has lost her baby.

But despite the area's health and poverty problems, said Mrs Houpapa, the spirit of the community made it a great place to work.

As well as being a midwife, she is a counsellor and nurse to many of her families. She supplies many with food and clothes.

She said you could not bring a baby into the world without trying to improve its chance of living to be five years old.

Because of overcrowding in South Auckland there are hundreds of families - some living with two or three other families in a house - who have four or more children already and a baby on the way.

Mrs Houpapa said that although babies had good resistance to sickness it took only about four or five weeks before many became ill.

The area manager for Plunket in North Manukau, Coral Elliott, said two babies had died in the past week, which was unusual.

"But it doesn't happen in other areas and the reason for this is other families are not constantly dealing with the huge pressures that families face here."