How negligence is increasing infant deaths in Kaduna

Amina Mohammed (not real name) went to the General Hospital, Kawo on the 19th of last month but was sent home by the nurses in the hospital after going through labour for eight days.  During her pregnancy, she was very committed to attending her antenatal appointments and even won prizes for keeping to her appointments, […]

Amina Mohammed (not real name) went to the General Hospital, Kawo on the 19th of last month but was sent home by the nurses in the hospital after going through labour for eight days.
 During her pregnancy, she was very committed to attending her antenatal appointments and even won prizes for keeping to her appointments, all in a bid to ensure that she gives birth to a healthy baby.
Unfortunately, two weeks after her expected date of delivery, Amina started having severe pains.
 On the morning of July 19th, 2015, a Sunday, Amina went to the hospital with the help of her husband. “I was in serious pain when I was brought to the hospital by my husband. I could barely walk due to the pain, only for the nurse to casually tell me that I was not due for delivery. She told me to go back home and return to the hospital in the evening for another checkup,” she said.
 She said she returned to the hospital the next day because she was too tired and it took some time before the nurses came to check her , and they discovered  that the baby was in a bridged position.
 Amina said the doctor asked the nurses to prepare her for Caesarean Section (CS) because that was the only option.
“Even while the operation was being carried on me, my child, a baby boy, was still alive but his breathing was very weak and he died before he was brought out of me. I was very disappointed when I was told my child died because if the hospital staff had checked me well and done the CS before that time, maybe my child will still be alive today. It will shock you to know that on that day, about five babies died in the hospital out of negligence, I believe,” she narrated.
 She said: “There was this other woman that was also in labour the day I gave birth. The baby’s head started coming out and they noticed something else was also coming out with the child. When they realised they could not handle the situation, they sent the woman to another hospital. We later learnt that the woman had to go to a private hospital where she paid N70,000 and still lost her baby because of the trauma.”
 She lamented the harsh treatment she endured from the nurses when she was in labour saying, “if I knew, I would have delivered my baby at home with the help of an experienced midwife.”
 She added that: “Many of my friends prefer to deliver their babies at home because of the way and manner nurses, especially in government hospitals, treat them. They want government to create a forum where Nigerian nurses can be trained on not only the nursing profession, but on how to treat women who have one problem or the other because that is the only way the women can be helped out of their predicaments.”
 Another patient at the hospital who also pleaded anonymity said: “I came to the hospital and was told my blood was low, so my husband got money and paid for the blood and the nurses started to administer the blood on me.
 “Shortly after, I felt like easing myself, you know being a pregnant woman and in labour, it is normal. So I got up to find my way to the toilet, unfortunately, immediately I got up from the bed, the blood started dripping on the floor and the nurses started abusing me.
 “They even asked me to leave the hospital if not for other patients that pleaded on my behalf and they put the blood line back in place,” she said.
 She urged the nurses to be patient with their patients saying, they are in pain and most times, do not know what they were doing.
 According to the Medical Director of Kawo General Hospital, Dr. Oyelami Akintunde, from July 1 – 24, 2015, a total number of 180 normal deliveries were taken in the hospital, eight through caesarean section with only four still births. He also noted that out of the four still births, two were booked while two were not booked cases.
“In the case of the CS that was stillbirth, in the past four months or more that was the first still birth from caesarean section, and the challenge was that there was double cord round the baby’s neck.
“The story that the affected woman has been in labour for eight days and has been visiting the hospital is not true. So we only had four fresh still births from July 1 to date contrary to the report that five children died in one week or one day,” he explained.
He said another challenge they face in the hospital is that, some pregnant women don’t come to the hospital on time when they are in labour until they are in second stage, and the baby’s head is already down adding, “some would have even gone to private hospitals where they are given injections that they are not supposed to be given and before they get to the facility, the baby might be half gone already.”
  On the issue of a woman who was in labour and something else came out with the baby, he said the health workers were not sure at that moment what was coming out, whether the leg or the eyes, and that was why they quickly referred the patient to the next line of management, which is Barau Dikko Specialist hospital.
On the attitude of the nurses of the hospital, he said: “The nurses in the hospital are very effective, efficient and they know their work. On the average, we used to have 250 to 300 live deliveries in the General Hospital every month. At times, a nurse takes delivery of about five women in a day, this is because we are short staffed. The number of midwives we have is not enough but we are coping with it.”
He appealed to pregnant women to ensure that they attend ante-natal care regularly. “They should also come to the hospital on time when they are in labour and not wait until complication sets in. Some people only attend ANC once and then show up again when they want to deliver, this is very wrong because such pregnancy has not been managed over time,” he said.