Sunday, 24 March 2013
In Kazakhstan, most your doctor and
dental services are located in the hospital, which is convenient, but
this surprised me my first year here, when my assistants every now and
then had to miss work to go to the hospital. I finally learned that
this simply meant they had to have a check-up or bloodwork, it did
not mean that they were very sick.
However, one place is separate here—the
birthing center.
My friend's brother-in-law picked us up
and drove us, out of town and quite some ways to this birthing
center. It was down quite a bumpy and pothole-filled road.
(Remember, winter has just ended, so most roads in Kazakhstan are
like this.)
They live near here, which is why his
wife gave birth here. (I was wondering why it was so out of the
way!)
When we arrived and before we went in,
we waved at the windows and searched for the one she was in; she was
sitting there with her newborn and waving back at us.
We went into the front lobby, which
was as far as we got. They have a strict no-visitors policy. No one
is allowed, not even husbands. However, husbands are allowed during
labor, which is a new policy, I heard. This is all for hygenic
reasons, I believe.
There was a video-phone for each floor,
which cost 40 Tenge a minute to use. My friend's sister knew we were
coming, so she came with her baby to the phone, and my friend talked
to her for a few minutes, while she showed off her baby. Then my
friend's daughter talked to her. But the baby started to cry so we
let her go.
Meanwhile, her husband was filling out
a form and passing along the baby presents and food we had brought.
When I expressed how stunned I was at
this, and how awful it must be on the mother to be shuttered away
like this, my friend said, no one felt like this. It was normal, it
was what you expect.
Different cultures, different
experiences, different expectations...
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