In rural areas, many hospitals and clinics are staffed by general practitioners rather than obstetrical specialists, the physician continued. What we are doing is training the generalists. They need to have skills in midwifery. Save the Mothers also is working closely with the Guatemalan health ministry, he said. That's why you see higher death rates.
Issues are basic.
They prefer home delivery. The risk of dying is very invisible. Maybe one woman will die in a typical village, and then it will be years before another one dies in the same community. But, in reality, more than 1,000 women died in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua from pregnancy complications in just one year, 1998. Health care conditions in Latin America resemble those of the United States 100 years ago, she added.