The reason people are scared of pregnacy in Maiyola, a village in Kaduna State, is because there is no health facility in the community and several expectant mothers have died as a result, reports ABDULGAFAR ALABELEWE
Pregnancy they say is a thing of joy, but not in Maiyola, a community of over 3,000 people in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Gestation is dreaded in the community.
The 40-year-old community inhabited by Fulani herders and farmers is faced with so many ills occasioned by lack of government presence. Though, only about 150km away from the state capital, Maiyola is very far from development.
The community does not only lack a clinic, you cannot find a painkiller anywhere. Worse, its only access road is a narrow footpath, making a trip to hospital in fairly better developed Kachia a herculean task.
Our correspondent who was on the entourage of a non-governmental organisation to Maiyola reports that the motorbike ride to the village from ‘Railway Crossing’ in Kachia took about an hour.
The villagers told The Nation that getting medical care is their worst headache, especially when it concerns the health of expectant women. They said they had lost quite a number of such women due to inability to access a health facility in due time.
The traditional leader of the community, Alhaji Abu Maiyola who spoke through Safiyanu Umaru, an elder in the community, said, “We hope your visit will bring development to this community. One area where we need rapid development is in the provision of healthcare, the building of hospitals and maternity wards or clinics for our pregnant women.
“Honestly, our women do suffer a lot right from their time of conception. In fact, anytime our women are pregnant, we keep watch until they deliver safely. You have seen that for yourself. There is no clinic and other social amenities here in Maiyola and this village has been in existence for over 40 years. We are living here by the mercy of God.”
Corroborating the community leader’s remarks, Mohammed Adamu, narrated the sad story of how he lost his wife and unborn child in the process of transporting her on a motorbike to the hospital.
He said, “I remember the day I took my wife to hospital during childbirth but before reaching a nearby clinic for help, she developed complications and lost her life in the process. These are some of the problems our women go through. She really suffered on that day before she and the baby died.
“Therefore, we are very happy to see you in our community, because we have never seen journalists face-to-face but here you are in our community. We also need primary school in Maiyola so that our children can be educated. They don’t go to school which is far from the community due to lack of security. We hope all these can be addressed if the government really wants to assist us.”
After hearing from the men, the endangered group, women equally shared their experiences with the team.
Salamatu Haruna, a housewife said she doesn’t attend antenatal services because of the distance between the village and where to access healthcare services.
While giving bad road as an excuse for not attending antenatal services during pregnancy, Mrs. Haruna said, “I don’t go for antenatal services during my pregnancy because of the distance between our village and Kachia or Idon before I access health care services. At times, I go once during pregnancy and deliver at home because we have traditional birth attendants to attend to us.
“We do not have good road here that one can easily get cars or motorcycle but we trek or at times if one have a relative with motorcycle he can help you. We record death of women here because of the bad road we have and when a woman is in labour in the midnight no car to take her to the hospital, so she ends up losing her life in the process.
“That is why, instead of us to be happy whenever we become pregnant, reverse is the case. We become partially happy and sad at the same time, because we don’t know how it will end”, she said.
Another housewife, Zainab Musa said she knows of five pregnant women in the community who died either while trying to give birth at home or making efforts to go to the hospital through the village’s bad road.
According to her, “I give birth at home because my mom is a traditional birth attendant and the culture here is when it is time for you to give birth you go to your parents house and not your husband house.
“But, I have witnessed five pregnant women in the community who died either while trying to give birth at home or making efforts to go to the hospital through this our bad road.
Maryam Maiyola confirmed that, “I know four people that died at childbirth. Sometimes is both the mother and child that died.
“I attended antenatal services once because I was asked to go for scanning in Kaduna city and I spent a lot before going for the scanning.
“Accessing health care services here is very difficult for us because some of us also feel lazy when you think of how to trek to railway crossing before going to Kachia or Idon before you get hospital”.
For 60-year-old Salamatu Haruna who gave birth to 13 children, all at home, blamed the ordeal of the new generation of Maiyola women on negligence of the traditional medicine. She said she never had any challenges giving birth to her 13 children at home.
“I never went to hospital during childbirth,” she said. “In those days women didn’t face much difficulties during labour but women of new generations are the ones complaining. During our own time, we used herbs in those days and they worked for us. But this young women now always suffer during labour because they have ignored tradition”.
