**Cries out for standard Primary Health Care Centre
**Pregnant women in the locality at high risk of Maternal Mortality because of the collapsed bridge connecting Geyenyere town to ten communities
By Aminu Iliyasu Kajjuru,
Kaduna, North- West, Nigeria. ….Despite the 77 upgraded Primary Health Cares (PHCs) throughout Kaduna state in the last three years of Governor Nasir El- Rufai Kajuru Local Government Area with over three hundred and fifty thousand (350,000) population has appealed to the state government to upgrade, expand its hospital to a standard one and also pleads for professional doctors.
A visit to Kajuru Local Government Area by a team of heath reporters shows that the small hospital cannot meet the demands of over hundred thousand women leaving in the area and lack health personnels.
Speaking with the Emir of Kajuru, Alhassan Adamu, appealed to Governor Nasir El- Rufai to upgrade the only PHC to a standard hospital, adding that the Local Government lacks professional doctors.
According to him, “We are happy to receive you here in this town. We are now having much problem as the state government is doing a lot to improve the lives of our people especially in the area of Education and Health, As we speak, the only PHC we have is very small with few nurses which is not enough to certal for the Local Government ”
The Emir who was worried about the size of the hospital, the bad roads, the collapsed bridge that has cut off about ten communities from the Local Government, also appealed to the state government to look into the issue of their bridge that collapsed two months ago.
According to The Emir “Only few of Our children goes to school although in the past we have security challenges but that too has reduced drastically due to the measures taken by the government and security agencies, I appealed to people in the local government to embrace peace so as to move the area forward.
Speaking with some women in the area, Aisha Sabitu 30 year old housewife said she has been married for 18 years and gave birth to 7 children. Two of her children were delivered at home because labour started in the night and they are twins.
According to her, ” we do go for ante natal care during pregnancy period. Women in this village take it serious because of its importance. ” the children I gave birth at home happened at night so there was no way I will be rushed to hospital. We need hospital in this town because the only facility closed to the Local government secretariat is not enough looking at our population
Another Housewife Rabi Mohammed 35 years explained, “We need hospital in this village because out of my six children 3 were delivered at home and 3 at hospital. Personally I prefer to deliver at home even though I make sure I attend antenatal care. During antenatal we are taught how to take care of ourselves and also the unborn baby. Why some women don’t like going for antenatal was due to our bad road and so we are appealing to government to help us.
Hassana Saidu 45 years old TBS in the community said personally she gave birth to eight children. 7 were delivered at home and one at hospital. After I realize women in this village faced lot of challenges during childbirth I decided to help.
Now for the past five years I helped women to deliver their babies safely. We are being trained by some of the health workers at the clinic on how to assist pregnant women. Years back we lost so many women in this village during childbirths but that has reduced now because it has been years we have not lost any woman to childbirth in this village and we thank God for that.
Hadiza lukman gave birth through CS after she was rushed to hospital and the workers were not on duty. ” I almost lost my life because I was in labour and the health workers were not on duty. That was around 8 am that very day. So, I was rushed to another PHC located in another village.
” The nurse on duty said she cannot handle my case so they took me to a clinic called Asibitin Daji were I was operated upon. ” This is why we are calling on the authority concern to please help us with another PHC and to also asked the health workers to always be on duty on time so that they can help in serving lives.
On the Collapsed bridge the community leader of Geyenyere said that the bridge connects about ten communities that has been cut off from the Local Government, thereby putting pregnant women living in those ten communities at a very high risk of maternal mortality in the areas.
