In 2006, I met Dr. N for the first time. He is an OB/GYN physician here in Kinshasa who took our first Neonatal Resuscitation course. He caught the vision as to how this training could change his country for the better. We call those who take it upon themselves to perpetuate this training in their own countries our "champions." Dr. N is truly a champion among champions! He took the course again the next year when we returned and began teaching other providers in Kinshasa. When we returned in 2008, he taught with us in Kinshasa and flew to his native Lubumbashi to teach with us there too. Later when the Helping Babies Breathe curriculum was introduced by the American Academy of Pediatrics, LDS Humanitarian Services sponsored his trip to Washington, D.C. to receive this training.
It was wonderful to see Dr. N again this week and to teach side by side with him. He estimates that he has now assisted in the neonatal resuscitation training of about 2800 doctors, nurses, and midwives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Just imagine the impact his WORK has had, if each one of these health care providers has gone on to resuscitate and save babies. Now remember that all of these providers has been challenged to go on and teach other providers in their own institutions. He told me about a midwife he trained in Mbuji-Mayi (the third largest city in the Congo with 1.5 million people). She started delivering babies at age 15 and is now 75 years old and still working as a midwife. She has delivered babies for 60 years. When faced with a baby who is not breathing, her technique over the years has been to put hot tea on compresses and place the compresses on the chest of the baby. Many babies have been burned, but she thought that she was helping. Once she took the Helping Babies Breathe course and received the bag and mask, she was thrilled to finally have an effective method to save babies who are not breathing.
Dr. N has done a study of the places where training has taken place and has found that infant mortality has dropped 50% in those hospitals and health centers which have received neonatal resuscitation training. Since the Congo has the world's second-highest rate of infant mortality after Chad (about 77 deaths per 1000 life births or 7.7%), it is essential that this WORK continue.
Dr. N, in his humble and unassuming way, continues to champion neonatal resuscitation. He is already planning more training courses later this year.
I honor Dr. N for his service, but as Elder Dallin H. Oaks has taught, "The Lord wants us to teach and minister out of love for Him and for His children, not to fill any need or win any recognition for ourselves . . . We promote unselfish service when we praise the work rather that the person who does it . . . If we praise the words or the work, we bestow recognition on the Master who directed it, not on the servant who seemed to accomplish it." Life's Lessons Learned, p. 102
I am grateful to the Master for inspiring His servant, Dr. N to accomplish this great WORK of teaching and perpetuating neonatal resuscitation in the Congo!
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