Into the light

After being brutally kidnapped by rebel soldiers in Sierra Leone’s war, Aminata Conteh Biger escaped to Australia. Now this courageous trailblazer is helping to save mothers and babies in her hometown, writes Juliet Rieden.

- Juliet Rieden

It’s close to midnight in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Faint strains of street music provide a rhythmic backdrop to the howling and screaming coming from the maternity ward, and Aminata Conteh-Bigger can barely contain her excitement. This is the part of her work Aminata loves best of all, watching babies take their first breath in the safety of the hospital her Foundation helps to fund. “They’re popping out like popcorn,” chuckles the midwife as, amid a flurry of nurses and doctors, Aminata flits between beds chatting to exhausted mothers, cooing over newborns and marvelling at this miracle of life in what has become one of the most dangerous places to give birth in the world.

The Aberdeen Women’s Centre is the second busiest maternity hospital in the country, with 3000 babies delivered each year. It offers free medical services to the city’s poorest women and girls, including a children’s clinic treating more than 20,000 annually, the ‘Dream Team’ program for teenage mothers, and the only comprehensive fistula repair service in the country. No wonder, then, that this cluster of buildings in a secure gated compound with basic but efficient wards, operating theatres and clinics, is a source of pride for Aminata. “There is an urgent need for expansion, so we can service the vast numbers of expectant mothers who flood through our doors,” she explains. “Many of the mums are teenagers – one was as young as 12 – and they come from the slums, the streets or the country villages where there are no maternal health services at all.”