Return to birth centre, tribhuvan teaching hospital

Following our amazing trek we had one day spare for visiting the birth centre in Kathmandu where I worked for 3 weeks just before Christmas as part of the Royal College of Midwives Global  Twinning project. I was particularly keen to see if there had been any developments and also for Steve to meet everyone, although was not sure whether this would  be possible as the date for the visit had been changed so many times due to the initial delays  with our travel.

I need not have worried- they were all there! It was great to see Kiran again and just wonderful to go over to the birth centre and see Kalpana, Parvati and Beena so keen to tell me how well the

birth centre is doing. - there were 30 births in the first 6 months, but another 30 in the past 3 months which is great news. There was also a woman in labour whilst we visited who spoke good English. She asked me to express her thanks to all the UK volunteers for helping to create such a lovely relaxing place to give birth.

I was so pleased to see the posters and information leaflets that we had created together being used so well and also to hear that they are finding the satisfaction survey so useful to be able to 'sell' the idea of the birth centre. Word about the birth centre has definitely spread and the nurse midwives have definitely realised the power of getting good publicity! They are collecting their statistics and also planning a celebration for the 100th birth including inviting the press! ! I also suggested that they invite a few of the mothers and babies so they could talk to the press about their experiences. In all we had a wonderful time and will of course stay in touch with each other.