Connie Mudenda - A Mother Can’t Wait

 

Working as a peer educator and counseling people that are HIV positive was actually very easy for me, because apart from the training that I underwent, I'm a person that is living with HIV. And I didn't have any problems when it came to share my experience with them. 

 

But when I encountered women that were expecting, women that were pregnant, women that were waiting to get their results for their children to find out if they are HIV positive or not, it was something that I, well, took very lightly, because I depended mostly on statistics. I would just simply say, “Look, last month, maybe we tested 100 women.” And then, maybe from the 100 women, 95 of those women had children that are negative. And that was fine, because it was a statistic. It didn't really touch me so much. I had no experience with that. 

 

There were women that would come and would lament, because they could not get their results on time. I would tell them that, “Look, if the system says you have to wait, then you need to wait. There's nothing that I can do. If they say, ‘You need to have your child retested,’ you need to have your child retested. There's nothing that I can do, until I had that experience.” 

 

I took my daughter to be tested when she was six weeks old. They pricked her in the heel of the foot, and I was told that I'll get the results after two weeks. When I went back to the clinic after two weeks, the results were not yet ready, and then I was given another two weeks. So, in total, that was a month of waiting anxiously, not knowing whether my child was negative or positive. I was very sure that somebody was keeping those results from me, because my child was positive. And it really scared the hell out of me. 

 

So, when I went back when it was a month, and they told me that the results were not yet ready and I was supposed to take my child back, so that they can prick her again. I just said, “No, you're not going to prick my child.” But those are not the exact words that I used. [audience chuckles] There are words that I use that I cannot actually repeat here. But I just told them, “You're not going to prick my child. You get the results for me today.” They couldn't find the results in the clinic. But I was very lucky, because I had gone to a clinic where even the central lab was located. 

 

So, I volunteered. I said, “I'm going to go to the lab and find the results myself,” which I did. I went to the lab and said, “I'm not going to leave this place until you give me my daughter's results.” Fortunately, they were able to locate the results. So, you know what happens when you just deliver here in Zambia, you are given three months maternity leave, you're supposed to be at home. So, I got those results. 

 

The normal procedure was after I get them from the lab, I had to take them to the clinic, so that they are recorded in the statistics book. But somehow, somehow, how I don't know, I bypassed the clinic. And instead of being home, I found myself at the office. I was not supposed to be working, but I found myself there. So, there was this-- 

 

You can try to imagine this crazy woman running into a building with a piece of paper in her hand, weeping. I was crying, and then I just barged into our medical director's office. And then, when she saw me with a piece of paper in my hand, she didn't ask, she also started crying. So, these two women are crying. We are not saying anything. We're just crying, weeping. And then, after some time, she started telling me that, “Oh, everything is okay. There is medication, your child is going to be okay.” In the process, she takes the paper, looks at it, and suddenly she realized that the result was negative. [audience applause] 

 

So, from that ordeal, I realized that when I'm dealing with a woman, especially one that is waiting for the results of a child, I need to be more empathetic, because I walked that walk, and I know how it feels like. Thank you.