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Tamale, Ghana – Zeinab Kadir, a Ghanaian midwife working in the Upper East Region of Ghana, has through a social media post given horrid accounts of challenges facing pregnant women in rural areas.
According to her, despite government making medical care for pregnant women free of charge, same could not be said about expectant mothers in most rural communities in the country.
She said, access to quality primary health care still remains a major problem especially for women in rural communities.
“….Expectant mothers have to walk or ride (bicycles) long distances to be able to enjoy “free maternal care”. If they had to walk or ride on good roads we would probably take it like that but the poor road networks leading to the health facilities are horrid. This causes so much delay in reaching help, increasing the risk of life threatening pregnancy complications like abruption placenta etc. So many precious lives have been lost due to the delay in seeking medical attention! Indeed no mother should die giving life to another!”, Madam Zeinab pointed out.
Below is the post:
Pregnancy and delivery are an integral part of life that women feel blessed to fulfil. The beauty of taking part in the creation of life cannot be overrated. The joy of the news of conception to the arrival of the new born is boundless. Expectant mothers turn to enjoy certain kinds of privileges from spouses, in-laws and siblings alike. Even the work place becomes a haven for some expectant mothers. Governments have even gone ahead to make medical care for expectant mothers free of charge, a great indication that this whole thing about pregnancy and delivery should be devoid of any obstacles and must be enjoyed. Sadly the same cannot be said about the expectant mother in most of the rural communities in the country.
Yes free maternal care but that is for only those who can easily access a health facility. Access to quality primary health care still remain a major problem especially for women in the rural communities of Ghana. Expectant mothers have to walk or ride (bicycles) long distances to be able to enjoy “free maternal care”. If they had to walk or ride on good roads we would probably take it like that but the poor road networks leading to the health facilities are horrid. This causes so much delay in reaching help, increasing the risk of life threatening pregnancy complications like abruption placenta etc. So many precious lives have been lost due to the delay in seeking medical attention! Indeed no mother should die giving life to another!
Transportation to the health facilities leaves much to be desired. For those who are lucky enough to get for want of a better word, “manageable roads”, the means to ply those roads remain a bug on the stem. No ambulance services!!! And the few ambulance services around are so expensive that clients eventually die, waiting to organise funds to pay for their services because, they operate the “money na hand, back na ground system”!! Hahahaa funny but true! Kudos to most of the community based nurses and midwives who go out of their way to sometimes pay or offer their only means of transport to for clients to be transported for further management at a bigger facility! Nurses and midwives out there are breaking their backs to save lives and they deserve some accolades. So take a minute and say a word of praise to these noble people and stop the backlash!! Anyway.
Now, when these women finally get to the so called bigger facilities they are left to labour on the floor or on stools the compassionate midwives there improvise. Imagine going through all of these obstacles only to be nursed on the floor or on a stool because the rich few who were able to access the facility before you have occupied all the beds! Gosh!!! If you have ever been in labour or observed the process, you can imagine being kept on the hard floor or stool to rest when you should be lying on a fur stuffed bed in a moderately warm atmosphere eating a big bowl of tz with a dawada and Armani flavoured ayoyo soup and admiring the mini you!
Every expectant mother should be given an opportunity to enjoy the process of child bearing regardless of her geographical location or economic status. Governments need to turn their attention to the health care delivery system in the country. This piece is not representative enough of the pain and suffering of the rural mother, there is a lot more but sometimes a summary of the situation is enough to tell the story.
#HAVE A GODLED WEEK#LIVE FOR A PURPOSE#SERVE HUMANITY#
Author: Kadir Zeinab
By SavannahNewsOnline.Com/Philip Liebs
