The drama of being pregnant in Fernando de Noronha

It was Mother’s Day when Alyne Dias Luna, 30 years old and eight months pregnant, was forced to leave Fernando de Noronha to give birth in Recife. Fearing possible contamination by the coronavirus, as reported in a report by Fantástico, she had ignored two court orders regarding her transfer to the mainland and fled, hiding on the island until advised by her lawyer to come forward spontaneously. From the police station, the pregnant woman was escorted to the Noronha airport, where she boarded a plane chartered by the Pernambuco Health Department for the capital. Twenty days later, he was born Helenaby cesarean section and earlier than expected.

Alyne will hardly be the last woman forced to leave Fernando de Noronha for the birth of her child, despite being the first to suffer directly from the interference of Justice. By protocol established by the local Administration, once the 28th week of pregnancy has been reached, all pregnant women from Noronha must be transported to Recife, for safety reasons, since Hospital São Lucas, the only one on the island, does not have a maternity ward and structure to deal with possible complications during childbirth. The absence of this type of investment is justified by the high cost of maintaining the service and the low annual number of births. According to the Secretariat, each of the 21 deliveries performed on average per year would cost 170,000 reais.

For the journalist and filmmaker Joana Nin, however, the health and financial arguments are fallacious. Visiting Noronha as a tourist in 2010, she heard reports about the issue of being forbidden to be born on the island and was intrigued. She then decided to look into the matter and, in 2014, returned to consolidate her project of making a film about the situation. Three years later, she started the pre-production of a feature film that followed pregnant women from Noronha for two years. Her goal was to understand the real complexity of such a peculiar issue. The result can be seen in Pforbidden to be born in paradisea documentary with an open release because of the pandemic.

“Every time the population organizes itself to try to seriously discuss the issue of childbirth on the island, the Administration delivers this reasoning”, she says. “But if it is in the name of their health, why in the middle of a pandemic would a pregnant and healthy woman be forced to leave a place with zero cases of Covid-19 for one that is infested?”, asks Joana.

But it was not always so. According to Nin, until 2004, the hospital on the island had a delivery room, a surgical center and an incubator. There were situations in which, due to the lack of a qualified team, some pregnant women really needed to be transported to Pernambuco, but in general the institution worked well, even if with a certain precariousness. In February of that year, however, Joseph of Arimathea🇧🇷 the last doctor to work on the island carrying out deliveries, left Fernando de Noronha and the maternity was deactivated. Coincidentally, it was also at that time that the government issued District Decree 18/2004, a document that established stricter control of the flow of people entering the island.

“Since 1988, andThere was a project to transform Fernando de Noronha into a tourist spot, which was consolidated in the 1990s. But then problems began to arise with people going to the island and never coming back. There was the beginning of a formal concern with immigration control and this decree created rules to deal with that”, explains the filmmaker. Officially, the justification given by the booklet of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the District of Fernando de Noronha is that “the controlling the flow of people in the Archipelago is essential to preserve the environment, promoting the balance of nature with human presence and guaranteeing dignified living conditions for local residents.”

The measures seem to have worked in parts. In 2004, it was estimated that the archipelago had a population of 3,100 inhabitants. Fifteen years later, this number dropped to 3,061, according to an estimate by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Since then, only four children have been born in Noronha. Tourists, on the other hand, in 2019 alone there were more than 106 thousand. There are people from all corners of the world interested in enjoying the trails, diving spots and natural beauties that paradise has to offer.

But if tourism is the center of attention, the same cannot be said of health. With a medium-complexity service, in the face of serious accidents, Hospital São Lucas is only able to offer support in the first instance. In a real race against time, patients at risk are always sent to Recife by air, on trips that last an average of 1 hour. For this reason, explains Joana, the problem is not limited to maternity hospitals. “The discussion of having a maternity hospital in Noronha is stillborn. It won’t be, of course. It is not viable. What we are talking about is help. to have a surgical center capable of helping a woman who has, for example, very low risk and chooses to have a normal delivery on the island, but who eventually presents a complication. And also help an accident victim, a heart attack or a diver. How can a place that receives so many tourists and charges an entrance fee not have service? We are not talking about a poor country town. It is a rich tourist island, ”she points out.

She is surprised by the coincidence between the start dates of immigration control and the suspension of childbirths and has a hunch about one of the reasons behind the measures: the right to land. Although the purchase of land in Noronha is prohibited, natives and permanent residents who have been on the island for more than ten years can apply to the government for permission to use the land, based on the Term of Permission for Use (TPU). the conquest of a TPU, consequently, makes the person a possible partner for tourism investors, since to open an establishment there it is necessary to have a local partner. “I think the fear is that people who are not from the island start wanting to have children on the island to have rights. Including, not only the government, but the population as well. The natives want island births for themselves, not for outsiders. The concern is similar: to prevent opportunists. The problem is that, instead of facing this problem by the Legislature, for example, they simply choose to penalize women.”

The penalty does not mean complete abandonment. Every pregnant woman in Fernando de Noronha has the right to monthly prenatal care at the local health center. If an exam is necessary, however, it will be necessary to travel to Recife, on trips paid for by the administration, to be attended at the SUS. The period of three or four months prior to the birth, which must be spent in the capital of Pernambuco, is also funded by the State, which provides lodging, three meals a day and a return ticket for a possible companion. But who can stay four months off work, asks Joana, pointing to the fact that many maternity leaves are negotiated on a case-by-case basis and few employers understand the situation. And she finishes: “Assistance is given, in fact, and it is not bad. The problem is that it is compulsory. In practice, the woman has no choice. It is violence disguised as assistance”.

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