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