Why many pregnant women die in Gombe community – Ex-commissioner

Hajiya Sa’adatu Sa’ad Mustafa is former women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Gombe State and an ex-commissioner in the Ministry of Women Affairs in the state. In this interview, she speaks on self-help project carried out by communities to save the lives of pregnant women.   Why did you decide to embark […]

Hajiya Sa’adatu Sa’ad Mustafa is former women leader of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Gombe State and an ex-commissioner in the Ministry of Women Affairs in the state. In this interview, she speaks on self-help project carried out by communities to save the lives of pregnant women.
 
Why did you decide to embark on a road construction project?
The road was really a challenge because the communities that we were constructing it for, live behind the mountain, and we thought we have to do it in order to fight for their survival. Like our father, the Mai Kaltungo, Engineer Saleh Mohammed who led us in the project said, it was a battle for survival because we have to save the communities especially women and children who die every day due to lack of access road.
 Lack of access road increased the number of maternal mortality rate. Kaltungo to Galdimaru is about 23 kilometers, but if a pregnant woman is about to give birth, the people have to take her in a casket on their head, in a journey of about 8 to 12 hours, coming down the hill in order to get the patient to hospital in Kaltungo. On most occasions, before they even get to the road, the woman had died because she had suffered long labour and sometimes even if they get her to the hospital, there wasn’t much hope that the mother or child will survive.
 So also victims of snake bite. These too suffer the same fate; and any other patient that cannot walk and had to be carried down the mountain before getting to the road to get a vehicle that would convey him to hospital.
 How do you assess the extent of the problem?
 To be frank, the number of pregnant women and their babies that have died is always higher than the number of those who survive, due to lack of access road. One of the reasons we carried out the self-help project is to draw the attention of the government, philanthropists and agencies that champion the cause of women and children to come to the aid of these communities.
How do you think government can come in?
 We have spent over one year doing this self-help project and we have been able to create access roads for motorcycles. But these motorcycles cannot convey  a pregnant woman comfortably to the hospital, when she is about to give birth. And this year, we are trying to see if we can create access road for even pickup vans, to enable them to drive in and convey pregnant women to the hospital to reduce the casualty rate of deaths during pregnancy.
 Despite all our effort, however, we lack equipment and heavy duty vehicles but we were able to construct half of the road but if government can send one heavy duty vehicle and provide a pay loader to assist in expanding the road, within two weeks a pickup van can enter the town of Galdimaru and that will ease the suffering of all the families in Galdimaru and surrounding villages.
 Another area that we want government to come in is the equipping of the maternity hospital. The maternity hospital was built by the Gombe State government through the Millennium Development Goals, but it is only a building without nurses, midwives and doctors. It also has no beds or requisite maternity facility.
Also at the maternity hospital, they have only one traditional birth attendant who assists women in the communities. But one birth attendant can’t do anything since she can’t keep a pregnant woman at the period of delivery on floor.
We are therefore calling on the state government to equip the building and post qualified health staff to reduce the suffering of the people.
 From 1999 to date, Nigeria has spent over 16 years of uninterrupted democracy, what is your assessment of women participation in politics thus far?
 Well, we still need to do more on women participation in politics. If you put current situation on a scale, it is not too encouraging that is why I am supporting the call on government to give 35 percent political positions to women.
 What is your take on the argument that men dominate electoral positions?
Well, men dominate positions because they always think that the woman wants to compete with them but in the real sense the woman only wants to contribute her quarter and at least to fill in the gap where men fail to deliver.
 Men should understand this and give more women chances to participate and contest electoral positions for the development of the country.
 I am sure that with the support of all stakeholders, more women will contest elections because of the awareness to participate in politics. I want to use this medium to advice my sisters that they should never feel they cannot work hard like men; they should always be determined, loyal and remain patient.