News

At our 28th Annual Fundraising Banquet on Sunday, September 25th in Reading, PA, our Executive Director Krystl Gauld reported on our August mission and explained how empowering a patient can be transformational: 

Last month, our Nigeria Chapter did local outreach in Abuja, the country’s capitol: 

A general exam that turned into an early morning emergency c-section served us all a reminder: the lifetime risk of a Nigerian woman dying during pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum is 1 in 22. In developed countries, the risk is estimated at 1 in 4900. 

For pregnant women in developing countries, an emergency c-section means that her newborn baby and older children are not orphaned. 

Sending a skilled medical team with appropriate drugs and equipment to an underserved area means postpartum women will also receive critical care and auxiliary support needed to ensure that they will get to see and direct the lives of their children.

So, when a pregnant woman hears that we are going to be in her area, she is often compelled to walk with her children to the FaithCare site, likely staying outside overnight to be among the first in line, hoping to be seen by our skilled and compassionate labor & delivery team. 

The same was true this past August for the pregnant woman who came to our pop-up clinic and surgical center in Abuja. If we had not been sent there, I do not know who would have identified and resolved this pregnant woman’s problem. Now, the newest member of our FaithCare’s Kids Club is about one month old, and her mother shares in the onus of bringing health, hope, and healing to her household.