The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa Post Correspondent
TAMBUDZAI weeps uncontrollably. She sits on the ground surrounded by her husband and church leaders.
They stamp their “devout” authority against her and other female church members present. Her transgression is openly decreed: causing the death of her unborn baby during labour! She confesses, not because she is guilty, but to escape the grip of apostolic syncretism.
Tambudzai was only 18-years-old when she suffered a painful stillbirth at the hands of her apostolic sect midwife at the sect’s shrine. Her husband and family were members of an apostolic sect that forbade any church member from seeking western medical assistance. That was the church’s doctrine and failure to comply with the sect’s orders was an abomination deserving isolation or exclusion.
They accused her of practising witchcraft and cheating on her husband.
In the course of her lengthy church tribunal, facing promiscuity and witchcraft charges before the church, she fell pregnant again. Tambudzai had no option but to abscond and be safe with her unborn baby.
According to the church’s doctrine, if a mother loses a child at child-birth she is the one at fault. This is God administering punishment for some sinfulness like witchcraft or infidelity. While Tambu for a moment in time seemed to have escaped the worst, another pregnant woman from a different apostolic sect, one Esther Mukadiro-Nyahoda of Tsanzaguru, Rusape, was not that lucky. She succumbed to maternal complications and died in her sect shrine.
During the early months of her pregnancy, Nyahoda defied church orders and had three antenatal care visits to the clinic. It was during one of those visits that she was told she was carrying twins and advised to undertake a routine anomaly scan to investigate structural abnormalities on the unborn twins. The ultrasound scan concluded that one of Nyahoda’s unborn babies was in a breech position, thus recommending a C-section.
Acting on her husband, Mandi Nyahoda’s religious beliefs, and prior to giving birth, she had received medical care at their apostolic church shrine. She then got into labour on August 26, 2017 but in the process of trying to help her to deliver at the shrine she gave birth to a still-born baby.
She lost a lot of blood as the apostolic midwife tried in vain to induce her into delivering the second baby. It was only after she discovered that Esther was in severe pain and that her condition had deteriorated that the midwife admitted failure. They tried to rush her to hospital but it was too late.
Esther and both her babies died.
Zimbabwe National Statistics board says 38 percent of the country’s female population is apostolic sect members and that amounts to around 2,5 million Zimbabweans.
These and many more women carry their pregnancies only to die during labour. They become statistics in the ever rising figures of maternal mortality and stillbirth rates in Zimbabwe because of their religious beliefs. The Ministry of Health and Child Care released information that in 2017, the maternal mortality ratio stood at 135 deaths per 100 000 women of child bearing age, the same ratio that was there the previous year.
The Ministry encourages pregnant women to book antenatal care facilities at registered health centres early so that they reduce maternal deaths. Manicaland Provincial Social Welfare Officer, Mrs Charity Ndadzungira, submitted that the rise in home deliveries points at failure by most women to access health care owing to beliefs, traditions and customs which oftentimes are religious.
“The huge rise places both the mother and child at risk as the unsafe environments for deliveries at and in most apostolic sects are not equipped enough to offer safe labour services,” she said.
While adhering to church doctrine might suggest their loyalty to their husbands and church leaders, that same loyalty, the research proved, is causing many deaths. Apostolic women’s delivering outside the formal health system without skilled attendance increases the risk of maternal and neo-natal mortality, writes Wei Ha in a UNICEF report.
A sect leader, who only identified himself as Baba Jonasi said his church forbids all members from seeking medical assistance because they believe in the holy spirit’s healing powers. He said breeding and multiplying on earth is a woman’s primary job and that pain and death during child-birth are God’s punishment/judgement against a woman who is a witch or unfaithful to her husband.
“We have our God who is always there for us. Female followers are part of the flock and are no exception. Why do people run to other people for help as if the Lord has deserted you?” he said.
Baba Jonasi admitted to forbidding his female followers from seeking pre and ante-natal care at hospital.
He also said the leaders develop church doctrine, oversee its implementation and monitor adherence to it. In this case they discourage anyone from getting medical assistance and if one defies their doctrine, they will be banished from the church and left with nothing. They will leave behind family, properties and jobs.
“We will not entertain anyone that rushes to the hospitals when the Holy Spirit is always there for us. Our women understand that and our birth attendants who are ordained by the Holy Spirit are always there to serve them,” he said.
Asked about Tambudzai’s matter, Baba Jonasi answered that he had no remorse at all for her as she had dug her own grave.
Said Baba Jonasi;“I grieve for Tambudzai’s baby but her fleeing from the church with the new baby was not a wise move. She should have just confessed her sins.”
A birth attendant with the sect, Mbuya Rudo Chingodzo said the reports of women dying daily while giving birth in apostolic shrines were sheer fabrication claiming she was careful with her patients and made sure they do not die in her shrine.
“Everyone will eventually die and so it is normal for some pregnant women and their babies to die during child birth. When someone dies during childbirth at my shrine, I believe it is the will of God and not because I was not careful. A large number of pregnant women are also dying in hospitals while being attended to by professional medical doctors but it becomes a big deal when they die at our shrine,” said the birth attendant.
She claims to have been trained by the Holy Spirit to conduct deliveries and therefore believes she is more qualified to help deliver pregnant mothers than medical doctors. As expected, members of the sect trust her with their lives and those of their unborn babies.
The director of the Maternal Health Programme in Zimbabwe, Dr Bernard Madzima said home deliveries currently stand at 20 percent in the country. Dr Madzima said the ministry does not train midwives who practise outside the formal health system.
“The programme to train traditional midwives was stopped years back. The ministry does not encourage traditional midwives to deliver women in their communities. Rather, they should encourage women to go and deliver in registered formal health facilities,” said Dr Madzima.
Meanwhile, the Apostolic Churches Council of Zimbabwe is working tirelessly to raise awareness and spread the gospel of using the formal health system to the thousands of sects in the country. ACCZ’s chairperson Archbishop Lameck Chitope said as a council that unifies all registered apostolic churches in the country, their mandate was to see that churches were not denying their members their rights.
He said as the ACCZ, they have been trying to raise awareness among the apostolic churches in the country that they do not deny members access to certain rights in life like education, freedom of expression and medical assistance.
“We urge people to report such cases where they are being abused by their church leaders and denied their rights to medical assistance and education.
“I do not deny that some churches are still denying their pregnant followers the right to seek medical assistance because Zimbabwe is a large country and usually such people cover it up so that nobody outside their church finds out. People should report such matters in time so that we can help before there is unnecessary loss of lives,” he said.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care has trained more village health workers to assist with mobilising communities and pregnant women to book and deliver in health facilities. Each ward has at least one Village Health Worker.
The Ministry has also developed and distributed information, education and communication materials that encourage pregnant women to book early and deliver in health facilities. The materials are distributed to health facilities and communities and are mostly in English and vernacular. They also inform the women on the benefits of delivering in health facilities, explained Dr Madzima.
According to the World Health Organization, 15 Zimbabwean women die daily at childbirth and 80 percent of them are apostolic sect members who adhere to the doctrine that seeking medical assistance is ungodly.
The saddest part is however, the fact that despite all these efforts by the ministry and church councils, these people will not even bother to register the deaths of their loved ones who die while being attended to at church shrines, the same way they do not bother registering the births of their children.
