Timor Leste : Lois' Story

UNFPA Saves Women's Lives Every Dav in Timor Leste bu the US Declines to Help

I visited Timor Leste as a co-founder of 34 Million Friends of UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), inspecting projects that UNFPA supports. Thirty Four Million Friends is a grass roots campaign raising private donations to replace the US contribution to UNFPA , withheld by the Bush administration last year. The loss of the promised $34 million left a 12% hole in the UNFPA budget for projects that save women's lives around the world.

Jane Roberts and I started 34 Million Friends because we believe that our government's action in withholding the funds is brutally harmful to women and children in countries where even small acts of generosity can prevent needless deaths. Timor Leste was a beneficiary of part of the first $1 million raised by 34 Million Friends. UNFPA' work in Timor Leste shows not only how great the need for UNFPA is, but also how very effective the organization is in working from a human rights base within local communities.

Timor Leste has been pushed out of the headlines by the campaign against terrorism and the war in Iraq. The plight of its courageous people no longer commands world attention. But the East Timorese, like the Iraqis, have suffered from unspeakable brutality at the hands of an imposed government, and like the Iraqis, they are trying to establish a functioning state to take the place of a repressive regime.

After nearly 175 years of colonialism, first by the Portuguese for 150 years, then by the Indonesians from 1975 until 1995, the East Timorese voted for an independent state. Their Indonesian occupiers left, but systematically destroyed the country's infrastructure, slashing, burning and raping their way out. Now the East Timorese, with the help of the United Nations and many governmental and non-governmental organizations, are trying to build a democratic state.

UNFPA helps the East Timorese address one of the most acute problems-a shortage of basic medical services for women and their families. All statistics about East Timor are estimates, since no one knows exactly how many people have survived the years of violence and turmoil. The best estimate of the fertility rate is 7.4, which means that each woman has an average of 7.4 pregnancies. The maternal mortality rate is somewhere between 600-800 per 100,000. Either number is shockingly high. Diarrhea is a major cause of death among infants and toddlers. Difficult economic times and a lack of employment have also fostered a high rate of another serious risk to women and children: domestic violence. UNFPA works with the fledgling government and local relief organizations, as well as other NGOs with efforts in Timor Leste, to alleviate these life and death problems.

Four doctors trained in obstetrics and gynecology serve the entire population of Timor Leste. (The population total is estimated at between 800,000--900,000; next July a UNFPA-sponsored census will be taken and the numbers determined.) The doctors have all been recruited by UNFPA, their salaries are paid by UNFPA, and they are all saving women's' lives every day.

Three of the doctors staff the maternity facilities at National Hospital Guido Valadares, one of the few institutions left standing in Dili, the East Timor capital after the Indonesians left. Dr. Sevinj, a beautiful woman from Azerbaijan, and Dr. Marisa, an equally beautiful woman from the Philippines, were tempted to come to work for UNFPA in Timor Leste because of the range of experiences such a posting offers a young doctor. In that regard they have not been disappointed. Up to 30 deliveries a day at the hospital, many of them complicated deliveries, have honed their skills. Dr. Majiec worked with the UN in Kosovo. He is experienced in the stresses of providing medical care under difficult conditions.

We visited the Hospital to see the doctors in action. The agenda notation seemed straightforward enough:

Visit National Hospital.
Meet with doctors and visit Maternity Room.
Visit Safe Room.

Our US-based assumptions of what "visit Maternity Room" means were almost immediately belied. The various maternity rooms were large, multi-bedded, airy and clean. One was assigned to women in labor, another to women and their infants post-delivery. No one complains about the hospital food because there is none. Instead, the patients' families bring food. Often that means that entire families come to the hospital, and the maternity rooms had something of the look of very clean bus stations with beds. Men, women and children carrying bundles were everywhere.

"Meet with doctors" on the agenda gave no hint that we would meet them in the operating room-not the high tech stainless steel room of our mental images, though scrubbed clean--and view first hand and close up an emergency C section. (The patient was fully awake and after being informed that there were visitors who supported the maternal medical program, she was positive in giving consent to our presence.) The confidence and competence of the doctors was obvious and reassuring. Everyone in the operating room celebrated with the mother at the successful delivery of a very big baby boy-too big for a normal delivery from the slight East Timorese woman lying exhausted but elated on the delivery table.

Finally, we visited the Safe Room. The Safe Room, another UNFPA-supported project, has been established at the Hospital as temporary shelter for victims of family violence. The phrase "family violence" has become a familiar one-abstract, almost, in its impact. The reality is anything but abstract, as we discovered that morning. We were viewing the pleasant, quiet room when the Sister in charge that day entered and said something urgent to our guide. He immediately led us out of the room and down the hall past two policemen and a man holding a beautiful curly-headed little girl who was clinging to him with both arms wrapped around his neck. We learned a few moments later that the child had been raped by her uncle. Her father had carried her to the Safe Room.

The women and babies in the Maternity Rooms and the child in the Safe Room are destined to lead difficult and dangerous lives in Timor Leste. They will not escape the perils of living in a poor, struggling country. They will be at risk from Malaria or Dengue Fever with every mosquito bite. But at least in times of immediate need, they have a place to go where they can get trained, compassionate care. UNFPA is there to help them. We, the US, should be there to help UNFPA. You are invited to help through 34 Million Friends of UNFPA.

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