By Samuel Onyekwere
The worsening health situation in Nigeria seems to be on the increase on a daily bases as the country looses one woman ever 12 minutes. This revelation was made at a media preview of a documentary titled “Ending the needless death of mothers in Nigeria.”
The documentary was package by DevComs Media Network in conjunction with other civil society organisations under the ‘Not Again campaign’ and sponsored by Mac Arthur Foundation. The documentary gave an expose on the level of child/mother mortality rate which they say results mostly from complications during pregnancy.
According to WHO, UNICEF and UNPF, 58,000 women died in Nigeria in 2015 due to child birth complications.
Explaining the reason behind the documentary, Bolaji Adegbega, DevComs consultant for the project, said the campaign was put together by the civil society organizations to stem or totally eradicate infant /maternal death. The documentary showed the near death first hand experiences of some women and opinions of experts and stakeholders on the issue.
He said the documentary focused more on real life experiences of these women rather than statistics, in order to sensitize the world about the poor state of Nigeria’s health facilities.
The documentary exposed some of the lapses in Nigeria’s health care system, the lack of will by government to ensure that health policies are properly implemented,
poverty, and ignorance on the part of the people, who in most cases don’t know what to do and sometimes leave it late.
In the documentary , women like Mrs. Uchechi Achonu, Auwar Ali, Elizabeth Sambo and Praise Uloma – Omoyele narrated their near death experiences during child birth and their ordeal in the hands of some medical personnel.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, listed some of the major contributing factors to the problem of maternal health care. He said the government has been collaborating with some medical missions to enlighten the people more through flyers and their various traditional rulers. He disclosed that the government reaches out to the grassroots periodically through the local government councils to educate them on family planning and other ways to keep healthy.
The Country Director, Evidence for Change, Dr Tunde Segun, said one of the major discoveries of his advocacy group has been the problem of accountability as the governments are not held accountable to the death care
of the people. He said that government does not have means of monitoring how its health facilities are used, despite making budgetary provisions for them.
He further revealed that the whole world measures how well Nigeria is doing in child/mother health care by how many women the country loses.
The documentary highlighted some of the basic factors contributing to the high rate of mortality to include lack of access to necessary and required drugs, lack of ambulances in cases of emergencies, accurate treatment delay in accessing proper medical care, lack of skilled health workers, urban and rural dichotomy in the distribution of resources, poor quality of health services at all levels, absence of good governance, lack of basic education, culture and tradition among others.
The Executive Director Advocacy Nigeria, Saudat Sanni, said “the country loses 576 women yearly per hundred thousand births through childbirth. If you look at the number, that is more than 200 people dying per day.”
She added that the figure is frightening and not majorly reported unlike when a plane crashes and kills 200 people at once.
The Executive Director DevComs Network, Mr. Akin Jimoh, in his contribution said “maternal health should be everybody’s responsibility and we are all accountable for our women to survive. When you have a population where half are men and other half women; when women are dying in the process of giving life, there is need to create awareness about this.”
Other civil rights campaigners that aired their views on the issue included Dr Abiola Afolabi Akiode, founding Director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARD C); Dr Peju Adenusi, General Manager LASHMA; Dr Dorcas Adeyemi, and Professor Oluwarotimi Akinnola, President SOGON.
They all agreed that the health care system in Nigeria needs government’s urgent intervention. They also highlighted the benefits of the health insurance scheme which the experts believe is key in achieving safe health care delivery.
Akinlolu Akinpelumi, Head Programs, DevComs Network, said one of the major problems encountered while shooting the documentary was their inability to have access to some government health facilities which was hindered by bureaucracy. In addition, he noted that it was difficult convincing some of the women to open up and to appear on camera.