Now that there is a shortage of village midwives, efforts have been made with the help of development cooperation projects to integrate them into the official healthcare system. She noticed, however, that official healthcare does not function very well in the countryside. A health centre may officially have 75 employees, but when you go there only the cook-caretaker is present. The rest are working elsewhere since it's impossible to live on the salaries they get. There are those who try to do their work well, but the conditions are difficult and there is a shortage of instruments and equipment.
People seek help where they can find it.
Where women rely on village midwives, men have turned to the male counterpart of the daya , the village barber. It is hard for a European researcher and a foreign woman to obtain information from a community of women in Egypt. Women's world is intimate and private, and women are reluctant to talk about it. When after a lengthy procedures permission was granted, she wanted to be open about her project. Doing research on delicate subjects is not possible unless you are accepted as a person.