COVID-19 makes childbirth travel harder for Nuxalk mother
Matt Allen | CBC News | Posted: May 7, 2020 2:35 AM | Last Updated: May 7, 2020
Women in Bella Coola and other rural communities travel to give birth, despite Covid-19's restrictions
Mothers in some of B.C.'s most remote communities have gotten used to having to travel long distances to deliver their babies.
However, in the age of COVID-19 and physical distancing, that process has become much more complicated for them.
"When I first heard about COVID-19, I didn't think much of it, but everything happened so fast," said Brianna Mack, a 23-year-old mother from Bella Coola. "And then before I went out to have my baby, I was really worried."
Mack and her husband Irwin Hans had to make the 452-kilometre trip to the Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake, B.C., by themselves and spent weeks in a hotel in isolation before she gave birth to her daughter Alva.
Travelling to give birth
Bella Coola is one of several rural B.C. communities where the local hospitals do not have the staffing or resources required to deliver babies.
As a result, women are required to sign a document acknowledging that they will travel to a different hospital one month before delivery. In Bella Coola, women travel to Prince George, Vancouver or Williams Lake.
The CBC reached out to Vancouver Coastal Health for comment, but did not receive a response by deadline.
Mack has two other children, and has already made the journey in the past. However, in those cases, she was able to travel with more family. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, she had planned to travel with her mother, mother-in-law and other family members.
They had been with Mack when she gave birth to her two other children, but this time, none of them were there. Mack had to leave her other two children behind as well.
"I cried for my mum when I was ready to give birth to my baby girl because it was hard for me," Mack said.
A distant reunion
The couple returned to Bella Coola on April 23 where they entered into an immediate quarantine for two weeks. During that time, the couple remained separated from their other two children, as well as the rest of the family. Alva was introduced to her grandparents through a closed window.
"It was very heartbreaking," said Mack. "My mum had her camera and she took a picture of us standing in our door. She was standing outside, and I took a picture of them when they were standing outside the window."
The couple will finish their quarantine on May 8, but the past five weeks have been a reminder of how much more difficult COVID-19 has made a process that is already taxing for the village's mothers.
"Why not hire someone for them to come here," Mack said. "I don't understand that."