Urban District Midwives of Sibu : Woo Teck Hui

The first Maternal and Child Health Clinic in Sibu was managed by the Sibu Urban District Council, although the Methodist Church had already started a very small clinic for women and their children in the 1950's in a small room near the Masland Church. The Foochows called it Woo Teck Hui. (Epsworth League). From then onwards any Mother and Child Care Clinic in Sibu was called Woo Teck Hui.

The Government clinic was near the wharf so it was quite convenient for the rural women to be attended to. This was the clinic my mother and her peers went to in the 1950's. My aunts from Nang Chong would bring all my cousins to have their Yu Huong Jeng in the clinic. Many of them I remember would develop fever after that. I was a strong girl and never had fever. I did not even have problems teething!!

In those days our aunties would bring their shoes or sandals in their hands and start wearing them when they landed in Sibu. It was easier to be barefooted using the motor launch.

Going to the Lau King Howe Hospital was probably a little more complicated for them.

In the 1950's pregnant women were given pre natal and post natal checkups. Prior to this almost all women depended on barefoot midwives for their home deliveries.

Children were given immunizations and vitamin supplements. I remember my mother being given iron pills for her last few pregnancies. However deliveries could still be either at home , at the private maternity clinics or the Lau King Howe Hospital.

Photo from Alamy Stockphoto of Baun and Asong, the first Kayan and Kenyah trained midwives to serve rural women.

Those women who delivered their babies in the Lau King Howe Hospital were attended to by the home nursing midwives who came in their bicycles after their discharge. These midwives (Chiek Seng Kang Ngu) were cheerful women who helped bathe the new borns until their umbilical cords dropped off. That was a service which was really well received.

the MCH Clinic later moved to a bigger, two storeyed building further in land in 1970 (Workshop Road). I was attended to in this clinic for all my babies. It was good to get to know all the nice midwives and nurses.

In 1979, the clinic was handed over to the Malaysian Government and local authorities no longer played any role in health services.