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Why Nigeria Must Stop Unsafe Abortions Killing Women by psalm121vs1: 5:30pm On Jun 21, 2016 |
My high school friend(we studied at st charles special science) Dr Hilary Obiagwu is the senior registra obstetrics and gynaecology department, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra State. This is one of the experiences he has had and I thought I share it with you. And ooh make una occasionally visit http://www.okoyetech.com for solutions to your health problems. It was a cold rainy early morning.The rain had started late that night and the downpour was torrential.I was awake through it all studying for the Primary Fellowship Examination of the National Postgraduate College of Nigeria in Obstetrics and Gynaecology scheduled to hold later that month and was about going to bed. The gruelling preparations had already started telling on me but i soldiered on; i have come too far along to give up now. The siren of the ambulance tore into the night just as i hit the sack and progressively grew louder.I turned in the bed hoping sincerely for it to be something else.I was the physician on call the previous day and the call has been largely uneventful so i had stayed back at the corper quarters closeby .I worked at a cottage hospital in a Federal tertiary institution in Southern Nigeria as a corper doctor doing the mandatory one yr national service.I eventually got down and had to leave with the driver to the hospital. It was a case of a 19year lady Tolulope(not real name)who was just rushed in on account of severe weakness, dizziness and fainting spell of three days duration. She had missed her period three months ago and had confided in a friend who recommended roadside patent medicine dealer as an expert abotionist who had carried out a lot of procedures using either drugs and unorthodox means such as sticks,bicycle wheel spokes and herbal concotions. She was so afraid to tell her parents who were knighted by the church and held in high esteem in the society.Legal abortion wasnt an option for her as it is deemed her life is not in danger while single parenthood would have left a damning impression on her and her highly placed family.Her mother had earlier regaled her with tales of virginity and how she should present herself chaste to the husband without any stain. So she went and was led into a dimly lit dingy room with a small bed int he centre of the room where the patent medicine dealer popularly referred to as the 'chemist' in local parlance used a bike wheel spoke like material on her. She had bled consistently since then but had been afraid to present to the hospital until it dawned on her that the end was near.Her boyfriend was a skinny dude; barely 21 and he was the one who brought her to the hospital. They have been having sex for about six months now relying on condoms and chance to prevent pregnancy but alas they ran out of luck. I quickly started resuscitative measures and established a diagnosis of septic abortion with shock.Her packed cell volume was 8% and she was burning.All attempt to save her life was eventually futile and she gave up the ghost within 3hours of presentation. It has been 5 years now but i still see her face clearly; i am persistently haunted by her pleas not to let her die and the cause of her actions.I was born a Catholic and i grew up hearing abortion is wrong and damning but they also told me same about contraceptives alas they lied or so i feel right now i am caught up in the middle of the whole chaos.. Unsafe abortion still remains the leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity with an estimated 1,000,000 abortion procedures being carried out annually in Nigeria. The lack of compositè documentation and the also the fact that a lot of these procedures do take place in unorthodox settings viz-a-viz the traditional healers, the roadside medicine dealers who learnt their art by apprentice, the poorly trained physician who is not up to date with the current trend in the management of abortion procedures also plays a huge role towards the burgeoning figure. In Nigeria, abortion is still legally restricted usually only done when a mother is at risk. Despite the apparent restrictive abortion laws in the country very few had actually been prosecuted for running foul of the law for a lot of reasons ranging from the lack of diligence in gathering evidence, the perpetual delays in courts of justice and the fact that it is not a reportable crime in Nigeria; people only tend to report when things go wrong because of the fear of stigmatization in the soceity.Also poor uptake of contraception due to low socioeconomic conditions with a majority of families living on less than a dollar per day; proliferation of quacks and patent medicine dealers by the roadside who would carry out abortion procedures with instruments ranging from bicycle spokes, sticks and poorly sterilized surgical equipments. The complications from unsafe abortion are multitude ranging from sepsis, uterine perforation, severe hemorrhage and maternal death..Those who live may have to deal with pelvic inflammatory disease, adhesions and secondary infertility in a country where a high premium is placed on fertility and childbearing.The psychological guilt also is overbearing on such ladies. We keep on playing an ostrich being self righteous and judgemental but everyday some confused girl is getting pregnant and not ready to have a baby.She could be anyone; our girlfriends, our wives or our sisters.When we are certainly not wearing the shoes, it makes perfect sense to rationalize and justify our righteous stand...But when the shoes pinches us hard and we are the ones at the end of the barrel staring at the gun; we might not know how we gonna respond.. As i left her fixed and dilated pupils staring at me as if in accusation that i could i have done something better i wondered Is there anything Nigeria can do to save her people from preventable causes of maternal mortality? Surely it is pure madness that a country that accounts for less than 1% of the global population could be responsible for 10% of global maternal deaths.Can we do better or are we going to continue like this? Is my beloved country the great giant of Africa cursed or are we the cause? P.S: I lost another 21year old to septic abortion last month during my call. I have advanced career wise but so has the mortality and morbidity from unsafe abortion. 5 years down the lane yet my yesterday looks exactly like my today.Very unfortunate.... http://www.okoyetech.com/2016/06/why-nigeria-must-stop-unsafe-abortions.html?m=1 |
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