UNC-IntraHealth Internation Summer Fellow Rebeccah Bartlett shares her experience as a frontline worker in the Philippines.

Excerpt: 

When I volunteered in a maternity ward in the Philippines in September 2013, I had about 18 months of experience under my belt as a midwife and a couple more years as a nurse. I had also volunteered in Papua New Guinea and was eager to return to a low-resource setting to sharpen my skills and develop my clinical thinking.

I hoped I would be of some help to the local frontline health workers. Perhaps I could lighten their load slightly, give them a chance to breathe by providing an extra set of hands. Within a day I realized this was not going to be the experience I had hoped.

What troubled me most was the way the women were treated.

Read the entire blog post, Stronger Health Systems Could End Abuse during Childbirth, here.