AN ODE TO A NOBLE PROFESSION
With Labour Day just around the corner, Alan Teh Leam Seng turns the pages of history for a glimpse into a career many consider as one of the most noble professions in the world
“THIS is how you should hold the baby. Make sure the milk is of the right temperature before you start feeding,” the nurse instructs the nervous young mother. My wife and I had just arrived at the home of a distant relative who’d just had her first child.
We join the group of well-wishers, craning our necks to get a good look at the ongoing demonstration. The nurse’s presentation quickly brings back a flood of memories. My wife and I call to mind the time when we were once firstand time parents. Just like our young inexperienced relative, we were thankful for the excellent post-natal assistance extended by the trained nurses from the Health Services Department several decades ago.
RUDIMENTARY BEGINNINGS
Health services began taking root in Malaya during the turn of the 19th century when a military hospital was established by the British East India Comback pany for its troops stationed in
Penang. The task of tending to the sick and wounded soldiers was given to the Catholic nuns attached to the garrison church.
Members of the public only had access to health services after Mun Ah Foo, a leader of the Ghee Hin Society, started the Pauper’s Hospital to provide basic healthcare for the poor and needy in Penang. Apart from that, the hospital staff also attempted to rehabilitate opium addicts.
Later, upon Mun’s demise, the administration of the hospital was passed to a committee, headed by Governor Archibald Anson, comprising representatives from various Chinese clan associations, guilds and other pillars of 19th century Penang society.
As British influence spread along the coast to the other Straits colonies and the inland Malay States, quality healthcare soon followed suit. Prior to the Second World War, things were done in a rather rudimentary manner where a large proportion of local nurses only started receiving training on their first day of work.
Apart from on the job training, these nurses attended sporadic lectures, both theory and practical, conducted by their immediate superiors who comprised mainly European sisters, matrons and doctors. The emphasis of nursing practice then was on the curative aspects of patient care.
During those early years, trainee nurses merely sat for their respective state examinations which had varying standards. Upon the completion of their training, these caregivers were promoted to staff nurses and over time, if considered suitable, became senior staff nurses.
SIGNIFICANT ROLE OF THE ‘BIDAN’
Traditional midwives, however, remained largely independent of legislation until 1923 when the control of the midwife practice and specific training programmes were established for the first time in the Straits Settlement and the Malay states.
Midwives were the essential link between the trained nurses in hospitals and expecting mothers living in far flung reaches of the country. These women didn’t have the funds or means to commute regularly to government hospitals in larger towns.
As a matter of fact, midwives have existed long before the medical profession ever showed concern for childbirth and treated it as a special discipline. Known generally as bidan among the local Malay community, these highly respected elderly women were vastly experienced in matters concerning pregnancy and childbirth.
The bidan’s expansive knowledge in the use of traditional medicines enabled her to call upon her large arsenal of traditional herbs to safeguard the growing foetus in the womb and, when the time came, facilitate its birth.
According to Perak tradition, the task of inviting the village bidan falls on the husband of the pregnant woman who, upon acceptance of his request, would pay the
bidan her fee upfront and present a gift in the form a tray filled with lime powder, sliced areca nut and betel leaves. These were necessary items for chewing betel nut, a mild narcotic popular in the past.
The bidan would move in with the family from the seventh month of pregnancy onwards and left only after both mother and baby were out of harm’s way. Her arrival at the house would be marked by a special ceremony called lenggang perut (rocking the abdomen).
During this observance, the midwife would spread out seven sarongs of different colours for the pregnant woman to lie on. She’d then proceed to massage the pregnant woman’s abdomen with oil before rolling a de-husked coconut slowly down the woman’s abdomen seven times. At the end of the penultimate round, the midwife would release the coconut and allow it to roll onto the floor.
The coconut would be inspected once it came to a complete stop. The ‘eyes’of the coconut pointing upwards essentially