Health
Health experts are worried over the increasing incidences of child-maternal mortality in Nigeria
By Samuel Ibezim
The wailing of Arthur Effiong on that fateful Sunday morning in Uyo not only dragged neighbours off from their beds but also stopped some from going to the church. The neighbours who ran to their apartment to offer help were jolted when they saw the lifeless body of Rita, Effiongs’s wife with blood on her thighs while her hands clutched her protruding stomach. She was eight months pregnant when she died.
On interrogation by the neighbours, Effiong revealed that his wife did not go for antenatal despite living closer to a healthcare centre. According to him, their church prophet advised them not to visit any health institution because the baby who has a special mission on earth will die if she did so. Unfortunately, the fear of losing the baby eventually led to the death of mother and the unborn baby. Consequently, the police arrested the prophet and Effiong for further interrogation and prosecution.
Similarly, in Owo local government area of Ondo State, Oluwabukunmi Alabi was reported to have been thoroughly beaten and chased away from the house by her husband over the loss of their three month old child. Alabi’s husband claimed that that his wife killed the infant child by not going for antenatal despite providing money for it. He swore never to accept her as his wife despite pleas by relatives and neighbours. The shock and injuries sustained by the woman landed her to a hospital where she is being taken care of.
However, investigations confirmed that the child died of a life-threatening illness called sepsis, a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. Common signs and symptoms include fever, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate and confusion, according to Wikipedia. Perhaps, if she had gone to the hospital the baby would not have died.
The cases of Effiong and Alabi represents the increasing incidents of maternal-child mortality in Nigeria. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, 2.6 million new-borns around the world do not survive their first month of life while one million of them die the day they were born. It also says that new-born mortality rate is three deaths per 1,000 in high-income countries while low-income countries have 27 deaths per 1,000. Of course, Nigeria is in this category and Lagos with a population of about 17 million people, accounts for the 24 percent of maternal mortality rate as was indicated by Development Community Network, a Nigeria-based non-governmental organisation.
Similarly, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, MICS, conducted by Nigerian government in 2016 and 2017 showed the rate of new-born deaths per 1,000 births is 37. The MICS is a household surveys implemented by countries under the programme developed by the United Nations Children’s Fund to provide internationally comparable, statistically rigorous data on the situation of children and women. Pregnant and nursing mothers are not spared of this poison chalice as it is on the high side in Africa and Southern Asia.
Despite Africa’s poor information and statistics on maternal-child mortality, the rate in Nigeria is high due to a variety of factors ranging from inaccessibility of healthcare to low availability of anti-malaria treatments and ill-advised religious beliefs as in the case of Rita. The 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, NDHS, indicates that maternal mortality ratio is 576 deaths per 100,000 live births and this figure is just an estimate as not every death is documented. Annually, for every hundred thousand live births, 576 women die.
Adewunmi Adeniyi, specialist on Obstetrics and Gynaecology, told Realnews that the maternal mortality rate is over 500 per 1,000 deliveries despite the fact that over 95 percent of the causes are preventable. Adeniyi who is a senior lecturer at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, identified haemorrhage, bleeding before and after delivery, prolonged labour, sepsis and pregnancy termination as some of the causes. He equally said that religious beliefs and illiteracy contributes to it and preached for empowerment of the populace as it would help to ameliorate it.
Agreeing on the causes of maternal-child mortality, Isaac Adewole, health minister, said that States with the worst maternal health indicators are Sokoto, Zamfara, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, and Yobe. He also said that the rate of reducing these deaths have been slow as many of the contributory factors remain unaddressed.
No doubt, President Muhammed Buhari’s administration is consolidating on the successes of previous governments to minimise and possibly eradicate it. Adewole, in July 2017, inaugurated a 34-member taskforce to accelerate reduction of maternal mortality in Nigeria. He said that maternal mortality remains unacceptably high in the country and rank among the highest in the world. He urged members of the taskforce to recommend ways to address issues that will accelerate its reduction.
Complementing the effort of Adewole, Aisha Buhari, president’s wife, through Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Adolescence Health and Nutrition, RMNCAH+N, has organised workshops in different states of the country to create awareness on it. At the inauguration of the 50-bed capacity maternal and children clinic that she built at Daura, Kastina, her marital home in December 2017, she said that women have enormous challenges “trying to access medical care during pregnancy and childbirth, and that during child birth women are at their most vulnerable state and as such need a lot of attention and support.”
Also, the federal government has initiated child-maternal friendly programmes to deal with the problem. Just few days ago, Chris Ngige, labour and employment minister, said that the government has increased maternity leave from three to four months and barred employers of labour not to remove women from work because of their maternity status. Ngige stated this in Switzerland at the international labour congress. He encouraged women who fell victim to such abuses to seek legal actions and report to labour inspectors.
However, Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of government’s effort as UNICEF and WHO reports showed that the country remains the second largest contributor to the under-five mortality rate in the world. Further, the duo international health bodies indicated that every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds and 145 women of childbearing age. There are works to be done by the government and organizations. Nigeria and Africa are known to be poor in data gathering in health sector. Contrary views and statistics are worrisome as poor information gathering has necessitated the minimising of the menace.
Realnews had great difficult when it tried to get information on the status of child-maternal mortality from the Lagos State Teaching Hospital, LASUTH. For instance, on Wednesday, May 9, Realnews wrote to the chief medical director of LASUTH, for permission to interview doctors and have access to information on maternal health. Shockingly, it got an SMS from its information unit on June 5, which reads “We received your request to interview professionals in maternal health. All our professionals currently work from different general hospitals as Ayinke House is not readily functional. Kindly proceed to access information from there.”
Not relenting, Realnews proceeded to the hospital but found it difficult to access information. It was discovered that the maternity ward at the hosiptal has not been functional for almost eight years as Ayinke House building for maternity is still on-going. Findings revealed that the doctors that specialises on maternity were posted out to satellite hospitals.
A walk to the Obstetrics and Gynaecology ward showed that large number of mothers and babies troop to the ward for diagnosis and treatments. The shouting of a lady crying while confronting some doctors in vernacular prompted Realnews to get close to her and when asked what the matter was. She explained that her five-day old niece was in a terrible condition because of the poor treatment given to her by student-doctors. She said that the doctors were inhumane and unprofessional while searching for veins to give her injection as they ended up doing it in her navel. The lady claimed that over N25, 000 has been spent in laboratory test with no result to show. She said that it was an experienced doctor that came later to place her on oxygen.
This notwithstanding, other patients who spoke to Realnews, said that their treatments are standard but complained of high charges. Efforts to get the reactions of Anifowose Bello, LASUTH public relations officer, PRO, was not successful as she was said to have gone out for official work.
However, some health workers such as Sharon
Ohaka, an Owerri-based ophthalmologist, believe that the incidence of child-maternal mortality has been on decline since 2015 due to increased awareness and implementation of the primary healthcare, PHC, policies of the government. He appreciated Buhari for ensuring that fund meant for it was not misappropriated.
Contrarily, Roland Irikefe Jude, a Bayelsa-based medical doctor, said that child maternal mortality is on the increase in the rural areas as a result of poor health seeking behaviour. He said that poverty and ignorance are some of the causes and pleaded for an accessible health institutions to help reduce it.
Hopefully, Nigeria and Africa would yield to the call of international bodies to invest in family planning services in terms of funding and advocacy because failure to take action will result to dire consequences.
“When a woman dies, it is not a loss to family, but a loss to the nation; this is because the nation loses out on her contributions to the social and economic development,” according to Abraham Adekoya, vice chairman, Interfaith Group of Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative.
June 15, 2018 @ 18:19 GMT |
Tags: Adewunmi Adeniyi Anifowose Bello health minister ISAAC Adewole LASUTH public relations officer maternal-child mortality in Nigeria. According to the United Nations Children's Fund President Muhammed Buhari PRO Roland Irikefe Jude Samuel Ibezim Sharon Ohaka specialist on Obstetrics and Gynaecology UNICEF
