If a report on the number of women and children who die daily in all the local governments of the federation due to leadership negligence can be gathered, the nation should be in perpetual mourning for losing thousands of her citizens to undeserved and preventable deaths!
When the healthcare of the people falls into the hands of greedy politicians, the poor will be at the receiving end.Having no money to access qualitative healthcare, Nigerian masses in rural communities end up in the hands of quacks and herbalists, who capitalise on their quest for good health and ignorance to cause them more harm than good, and even death in many instances.I was really moved by the sad story of my uncle whose pregnant wife died having fallen gullibly for the antics of herbalists, popularly called traditional doctors in localised tongue.My uncle’s late wife had her four babies through the help of a particular ‘traditional doctor’ who used to provide her with concoctions to take once she became pregnant.Sadly, the late woman believed that the concoctions were alternatives to the pregnancy care she could have received if there was a functional antenatal care programme in the primary healthcare centre in my village.This was before the orthodox practice boomeranged and consumed her life.During her last pregnancy, her body system was no longer accepting the concoctions, which according to my findings, couldn’t repair already damaged vital organs of her body. Worst of all, my uncle and his late wife never embraced family planning, so within four years of their marriage, they had four children and were expecting the fifth! But, unfortunately, the expectation was dashed. The mother of four died at the age of 28!From what I gathered, the late woman was on her farm when she fell into labour, and the pregnancy was only seven months. She cried for help, and she got the attention of other women on the farm, who assisted to deliver her of the baby right there on the farm.About ten minutes after the delivery, the poor woman could not stop bleeding. The complication was such that needed the attention of a secondary healthcare facility, but from experience, the ones in my state of Abia are not functional. A tertiary facility was the next option.From my uncle’s location, the journey to the federal medical centre in Umuahia is at least three hours, depending on the availability of an ambulance (ideally) or any other vehicle at the time of need.In this particular case, it took my uncle five hours to get a vehicle, and the three hours’ distance, to get to the hospital.To cut the long story short, my uncle’s wife died at the gate of the hospital, and her premature baby followed two days later as a result of infection.Having worked as a health reporter for two years, I felt disappointed in myself that such a calamity could befall my people even when I claim to be knowledgeable.In regrets, I said to myself ‘why didn’t I travel home before now to educate these women who do not read newspapers, watch television and hardly listen to the radio?’ These are people who spend most of their time on their farms and have less than 24 hours of electricity supply in a week.But then, I remembered that my blame was quite minimal. My people are said to have representatives in government who presented themselves to serve and in whose hands public monies allocated for healthcare and other basic amenities lie.Then I cried out loud, bearing in mind that thousands of Nigerians, especially women and children, die everyday due to the greed and crass insensitivity of our representatives.If every chairman in the 744 local governments of the nation, every governor in the 36 states, the president, as well as the cliques of their aides would at this stage work a little more conscientiously, our nation will be much better for it.A little here and a little there could be appreciated, since the nation knows nothing about accountability.If a report on the number of women and children who die daily in all the local governments of the federation due to leadership negligence can be gathered, the nation should be in perpetual mourning for losing thousands of her citizens to undeserved and preventable deaths!My media colleagues have written a lot about this gruesome situation, yet little is done compared to what is required.If we sit back and make do with the usual reel off at the stagy ministerial press briefings, who then will save Nigerian women and children in our rural communities?My name is Ndidi, and I am a health correspondent, and a Champion for maternal and newborn health.