In the DRC, care related to the birth of a child is the responsibility of the mother, while the majority of the population lives on less than two euros a day. Hospitals say they have no choice but to hold them back.
In this hospital in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, three young mothers have been stuck for one to three weeks because they cannot pay for the care related to their childbirth. The three women are forced to stay together in the same room. One of them, Annaëlle, gave birth to twin girls in difficult conditions, as told by Yvette, her mother, who visits her every day: “She came to give birth here. She is 16 years old. And then there was a complication. We had to have a normal delivery, but we had to give her a cesarean section.”
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A relatively common practice
Yvette could probably have paid the 35 euros for the delivery, but the 140 euros for the caesarean section is another story. According to the World Bank, in 2021, 64% of Congolese lived on less than two euros a day.
If the doctors persist in keeping these patients, it is because it is thanks to the cost of this care that the hospital runs, as explained by Doctor Mpumpa, manager of the structure: “It’s to make the hospital work, the hospital works with money. You have to have the products, you have to change the birthing beds, you’ve seen the state of the beds…” It is therefore really not with lightness of heart, he says, that he is holding these women prisoner. Moreover, no one seems to blame him, the practice being relatively common.
“I would like tomorrow to stop”
There is one person who is mobilizing for these young mothers: the aptly named Grace Mbongi. This 44-year-old Congolese introduces herself as a businesswoman. She regularly visits hospitals where she meets detained women and pays their bills, as she did for Annaëlle. “The objective is clear. I would like that tomorrow, it stops, explains Grace Mbongi. That tomorrow, women in my country give birth in correct conditions and that they are no longer detained because they cannot pay .Because I realized that in other countries, even bordering ones, the state pays for free maternity.”
Never again in the Democratic Republic of Congo all for the law free maternity pic.twitter.com/y2FqLTSWer
— Grace Umek Mbongi (@gracemonderdc) June 30, 2020
A universal health coverage bill has recently been on the desk of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi. It remains to be seen when it will be ratified, so that these women can return home.