MY MIDWIFERY

Shaqaiak Masomi is a caseloading community midwife based mainly at Greenlane Clinical Centre, Auckland, providing antenatal and postnatal care for refugee and former refugee women from the Middle East and South East Asia. She also works one day a week at Auckland Hospital on the maternity wards. Here Shaqaiak discusses her career and the role midwives have played in her own life.

I am originally from Afghanistan. I came to New Zealand with my mother and sister in 1997. My father was a high school teacher and he was teaching girls and boys. When the Taliban invaded they burnt the schools and the teachers’ lives were at risk because they were educating girls and women. My father wanted us to leave the country but we couldn’t all leave together. He wanted my mother, my sister and myself to leave first. We fled to Pakistan and then Iran and on to Indonesia where we were stuck for a couple of months. By this time we had lost contact with my father. When we were told we were leaving Indonesia we had no idea we were coming to New Zealand. We landed in Wellington in May, very cold and frightened and with no luggage. We went to a camp and an Afghani family came to see us and helped us to settle. My mother discovered that her older brother was living in Auckland; she had previously lost contact with him. We were reunited with our uncle and he helped us to enrol at school in Auckland and for my mother to find a part time job at a bakery. We eventually established contact with my father again and my mother saved money and organised for a lawyer to help apply for a visa for him. The school that my sister and I attended was aware of the story and the staff and parents of students helped with donations. We were reunited with my father in 2000.

My mother had two children after we arrived here. She had post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and I saw the midwife visiting her and all the services that were involved in her care. I thought about my mum’s journey and though ‘why can’t I be that person to help other refugees and women new to New Zealand; to give them a start’. Often for refugee women, when they get pregnant, this is an entry point to the New Zealand health care system. My mother’s midwife did this for her and went beyond her job description. She would pop in to check on her and sometimes come with a food basket. It felt like she was a member of the family.

Many of the women I work with have been through traumatic experiences in war zones and seen terrible violence. PTSD is common. Women may have been victims of sexual violence or domestic violence. As a midwife you have to find a way of asking questions that will help a woman to open up and see if she has risk factors for PTSD and postnatal depression. Often this does not happen on the first visit; it can take five or six.

One of the aspects of my job that I like most is the impact that you can have on a woman’s life. Midwives can bring positive changes to a woman and her family. It is so rewarding when you see a woman in the community whom you have encouraged to take English classes or to learn to drive later taking her children to play groups and to the GP. I feel I have helped that woman to get on her feet in New Zealand.

One of the main challenges in my work is dealing with traditional gender dynamics. Women who have arrived within the last few years may not be able to get to the clinic without their husbands so the challenge is trying to help them to gain some independence. The husbands often wait in the waiting room and don’t want to engage. I usually make a point of inviting them into the room for the visit to help them feel more involved and included. Sometimes the husband or partner answers all the questions and I have to stop him and see if the woman can express her feelings. This also allows me to assess the woman’s level of communication in English. I speak Farsi which is the common language of Iran and Afghanistan but if I do not speak a woman’s language I work through an interpreter. Women can be reluctant to communicate this way. Their communities in New Zealand are small and they may know the interpreters so this can take a lot of negotiating.

Sometimes I see resistance from husbands who don’t want their wife or partner to step into society, purely based on their experiences coming from male dominated countries. Over time with education and guidance they come to realise that in a country like New Zealand it is safe and appropriate for a woman to drive and be out there in society learning a new language and being more involved in the community. There can be cultural tensions when families from different cultures settle here. You don’t see many girls going on to education beyond high school in Afghanistan and women don’t generally work after they get married. They have children and stay at home. But I have seen a lot of change in the community here in the last few years. I have seen so many Afghan and Somalian women thriving in the community. When I see women like this it makes me so happy and proud of their achievements.

I graduated from Auckland University of Technology in 2014 and in the first year after I completed my midwifery degree I tried to set up antenatal and parenting classes for the Afghan community. I wasn’t able to get funding but I am still working towards that.

I work with a wonderful team of midwives at Auckland Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre. The team of community midwives based at Greenlane have been an immense support to me and are the backbone of my achievements and goals and I would like to thank them. My father told me and my siblings that New Zealand was a land of opportunity and to ‘go for it’. I feel that refugee children who get opportunities tend to thrive. square