A Doctor's Quest
The Struggle for Mother and Child Health Around the Globe
by Gretchen Roedde
foreword by John Evans
Recounting medical missions in half of the thirty countries in which she has worked for the past twenty-five years in Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific - from Darfur in Sudan to Papua New Guinea and Bhutan - Dr. Gretchen Roedde shares the grim reality of world politics and bureaucratic red tape on the front lines as a doctor in mother-and-child health and HIV/AIDS.
A Doctor's Quest tells the stories of the hopes of village women struggling to give birth safely, their often corrupt leaders, and countries trying to bring evil despots to justice. The book analyzes the slow progress in global maternal health, contrasting the affluence of the few with the precarious hold on survival of the world's poorest, where economic realities force families to sell young girls into marriage at the age of thirteen to face higher risk of death from early child-bearing.
close this panelGretchen Roedde has worked as a public health doctor in nearly thirty countries in the developing world for the past quarter-century, specializing in mother-and-child health and HIV/AIDS. She worked for the United Nations Population Fund in Ghana and Papua New Guinea to assess and promote progress in maternal health and has also been involved in projects for UNICEF in Botswana, World Vision in Bangladesh, and Rotary International in Malawi. Dr. Roedde lives in Haileybury, Ontario.
close this panel"A Doctor's Quest offers a roller-coaster ride on a voyage into far-flung and sometimes dangerous territory, with thrills, spills, and occasional joy along the way."
This fine book demands, and deserves, slow and appreciative reading.
A Doctor’s Quest speaks in the voice of birthing women from the rural regions of 15 of the poorest countries around the world. Their tales of bravery in the face of delivering without trained birth attendants and the joys and the complications that occur are the substance of the book. Weave in the public health perspective on interrelated themes of literacy, contraception, health care delivery, rural health work shortage, social disruptions, sexual violence, inefficient health care systems and corruption, and the book becomes a compelling treatise on maternal health.
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