CHILD CARE AND MATERNITY HOMES/LICENSING

Referring to the last article on how to improve our health sector, this is the continuation but as a new topic on maternity care. So, the topic: "Child care and maternity homes/licensing" is an embodiment health sector or centres created to deal on child/Mother related emergency treatment. This type of health units was introduced in Nigeria as a British standard of treatment known as midwivery treatment by the colonial mastes. It was introduced as a medical trade but with old british style of treatment, their main objective was to see the welfare of pregnant women; though the medical operators trained as midwivery nurses were not profesdionals as medical doctors today because some of them were not highly educated as the medical professionals today. Therefore, they learnt as a trade to do the work of a gynecologist.

Now, the hit of the Biafran war between 1966 - 1970 made this trade the model centres for major medical cares in the south-south and South-East of Nigeria, mainly all pregnant women resorted to maternity homes for health services treatments. And as a result, there was high mortality rate of pregnant women due to lack of expertise. The unqualified gynae treatment received from this sector were not professionally like the ones obtained from the major hospitals today. So, it was risky for them to handle caesarean operations to pregnant women because they lack professional training on this. So any pregnant woman that undergoes the Caesar hardly survived it and majority of them gave up hope of survival once recommended for caesar. Even major professional health sectors like General hospital could not handle such critical cases as it is today, it either they cut one artery , forget scissors, needle, or razor blade in the womb which will trigger internal bleeding that leads to death of the patient later, even after survival. So, many Biafrans then could not receive professional medical care due to the civil war, some of them lost their lives while hiding  in the bush from the Nigerian soldiers. I can recall how my mother who was a practising nurse then trained by British medical personnel narrated to me her ordeal of experience in handling critical cases of pregnant women hiding in the bush from the attacks and captivity of Nigerian soldiers. One of the sad and pathetic story she shared with tears as her experience in the profession was how she lost a pregnant woman and her twine babies after safe delivery because there was no food to sustained them right inside the bush as a result of the war. According to her, she said the pregnant woman before putting to bed, she does not have enough blood to carry her through the delivery process but by God's intervention, she had safe delivery, but there was no food to sustain her and the twin babies. All effort she made to get milk and preserve the babies was futile, they only relied on breast feeding. But imagine twin babies feeding from a mother that ran shortahe of blood and infact it was critical situation for her because the Nigerian soldiers were blocking every route you can use public mobility to cross and buy anything from the main town Enugu which was the main capital territory of former Anambra state. The capital territory of the state had already been captured and invaded by Nigerian soldiers who were then plundering the Biafrans as refugees. So at certain point, the woman's body system began to change due to lack of blood as a result of malnutrition, the symptoms like swelling of body, especially the legs and the other symtoms of kwashiorkor. She had to give up, leaving the twine babies behind which she tried to cope in sustaining them in that critical condition right in mud houses in the bush. And the twin babies later lost their lives due to lack of feeding.

Then  there was nothing like good hospitals in operation because everybody was in a hide out from Nigerian soldiers, so this was how maternity homes became so popular in the remote areas of the state as a medium to solve both major and minor health related issues. And during those critical times, the maternity homes operations and treatment were no more limited to mother/child care treatments but it extended to adults treatment because of the civil war. These continued until 1969/1970 when the Biafran war ended. Now, from this point you can understand the benefits these maternity homes provided and why it is necessary when the need arises. So it is not good to shutdown maternity homes, instead the government should look in to their licensing.

Still on my mother's experience as a midwifery nurse, shel began to tell me those that she helped to put to bed as pregnant women after the civil war. Another similar story like the above paragraph. As of 1976 - 1977, the University Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu invited her and begged her to become one of their matron staff, but the husband who was bastardly rich as a transporter rejected the offer, now what brought about this offer? The reason was that a woman booked for a caesarean operation in the hospital went and delivered safely under her care. According to her, the baby was not well positioned to come out from the womb, and that was very risky attempt for any medical gynae to try to use safe delivery process for such cases. So, when the woman came to our house with tears and told her the situation of things at the dying minutes for the caesar operation because people hardly survived cesarean operation those days due to lack of experties and she sensed that she might not cope because almost 99% of those that undergone through the process lost their lives in the hospital due lack of profrssionalism. Then, at that critical time my mother does not know what to do, and after her diagnosis on her " she made a request that it is better she lost her life through safe delivery than after paying huge amount for the booked caesar, she still lost her life".  This statement made my mother picked courage knowing that she must definitely lose her life if she goes through caesar process because pepple hardly survived it those days. When her labor began that day, after some minutes behold the  baby came out with two legs instead of the head and because of her experience, she managed to save situation, though she started having ceaselessly bleeding, when my mother bundled her into my father's vehiecle and they conveyed her to UNTH where they stopped the bleeding. So her baby survived without any posture defect and the woman survived. This is why the medical doctors traced her and demanded for her services in the hospital. Still other experience like this one that made her more of professional midwifery nurse as a private and as consultant in some private hospitals as of then.

So, it is good to note that maternity homes treatment today are no more like those days because the treaments should be limited to emergency care like first aids treatmrnts especially for casualties, antinatal care, post natal care and drug prescription for babies/mothers as long as pregnancy is concerned. Other major treatment should be refered to the state and federal General hospitals for medical treatment like lab test and diagnosis before treatment. I think with this measure, we can adopt maternity homes as a medical medium to sort out a child/mother care health related issues in the local areas of the states in Nigeria. This is because you cannot operate maternity homes in the urban centre or developed township. Though the poor masses that like cheap medical services still patronize few maternity centres in the township due to poverty, irrespective of their deemed unprofessional and quack services in the modern society, the poor masses go to them for major treatments instead of emergency cases. And that is why their position is in local and remote areas of the state instead of operating in the civilized state capital.

Also, people misunderstand medical clinics to be maternity homes, please, they are not the same thing. A medical clinic is headed by a licensed professional doctor and must had been identified with Nigerian Medical Association. A clinic is a mini medical institution or hospital where medical advice and treatment are being given by medical professional. Especially where student doctors are taught by observation. Long live Nigerian Medical Association, long live federal ministry of health, long live federal Republic of Nigeria, Long live World Health Organization.

Written by:

ONYIA EMEKA HEATH
+2348186388641