Debt collectors threaten hospital's support for slum mothers

BRAZIL - It's a cry that wakes the most human of instincts - Celina Mendes dos Santos' baby boy is only minutes old and he is making his presence in the world known to all around him.

To his adoring and exhausted mother he is unique, but he is also one of hundreds of babies born at Amparo Maternal Hospital in the run-up to Christmas.

The biggest public maternity hospital in Sao Paulo, it is the only one in Brazil to operate a policy of never refusing anyone, and is a lifeline to the country's poorest and most vulnerable women who often fail to find vacancies at overcrowded public hospitals for hundreds of kilometres around. Some women who give birth here have been turned away many times elsewhere.

In a country where millions live on little more than 3.5 reais ($2.20) a day, for the majority of Brazilians private medical plans are inconceivable - many of the women here are young, single, homeless or live in the city's many sprawling favela slums.

But Amparo Maternal - where around 40 babies are born every day - is threatened with closure unless it can raise nearly 7 million reais ($4.4m) to clear its debts, which creditors are no longer willing to sustain.

The Amparo, meaning "to support", was founded in 1939 by a Catholic group led by the Archbishop of Sao Paulo and is funded by the Government and donations.

Though run according to Catholic principles, it aims to help all in need regardless of race or religion. For some women that simply means providing a free maternity bed.

But as more than three-quarters of the women attending the hospital are single, according to last year's figures.

Staff also provide volunteers who will stay with the often young and frightened mothers-to-be - 35 per cent are between 16 and 20 - to provide emotional support and reassurance.

It is its social wing of 100 refuge beds for homeless expectant mothers - those abandoned, fleeing domestic violence, or escaping life on the streets - that makes the Amparo different.

Some women stay in the dorms for up to a year while they work out a new life for themselves and their babies.

In return for help in the kitchens the women receive food and clothing, medical care, addiction support and courses in domestic skills, literacy and IT. It is an expensive ideal.

"The debts have accumulated over the years but there exists a limit," explained Sister Enir Loubet, vice-president of the hospital. "If we can't raise that 7 million reais we will work on as long as we can but there is a real danger that we will need to close."

In 2003, the electricity was nearly cut off due to unpaid bills, putting hundreds of lives, including those of premature babies, at risk.

The hospital has launched a campaign to allow it to pay off its debtors.

A main focus of the initiative is an adoption scheme of the social hospital beds, at the cost of $25,400 each.

Tereza Aline, 33, is one of hundreds of thousands that the hospital has helped in the past 66 years. Brought up in an orphanage, she became homeless at 17 and developed a crack addiction while working as a prostitute.

Her first son was born prematurely on the streets of Sao Paulo. When she became pregnant for the second time, a church group put her in touch with the Amparo, where she gave birth to her son two months ago. Both are staying in the refuge while Aline makes plans.

"Without the Amparo I don't know what would have happened," she said. "What this has meant to me is that I have been able to start a new life."

- INDEPENDENT