29th September, 2011
Dr Ugochukwu Chukwunenye, the Medical Director of Optimal Specialist Hospital, Surelere, Lagos, has blamed many maternal deaths in the country on avoidable factors.
Chukwunenye, a gynaecologist, spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN in Lagos on Wednesday.
He said that maternal deaths would be reduced if certain beliefs were corrected and adequate facilities and manpower made available.
The gynaecologist said that it had become common place for women to die before delivery due to delay caused by lack of adequate facilities and manpower to cater for them at the hospital.
He added that some women, due to their religious beliefs, refused blood transfusion and caesarean session even when that would save their lives and prefer to believe that God would help them deliver normally.
He said that ignorance also played its part as a woman in labour for 12 hours ought to seek medical; help.
“Ignorance, religious beliefs and lack of adequate facilities and manpower are some of the many factors responsible for the high rate of maternal mortality in this country.
“It is disheartening because these are things that can be easily corrected,†he said.
In view of limited facilities and staff, he urged the government to form an alliance with private health hospitals to reduce the burden on public health institutions.
He said that public hospitals should refer patients to good private hospitals when they were too many for them to handle instead of delaying until complications arose and they died.
Chukwunenye called for the provision of more facilities for public hospitals to enable the staff to perform maximally, explaining that they were of no use if they had nothing to work with.
“Any good government should be very concerned about the well being of its people.
“It is only when the people are healthy and alive that the nation can develop,†he said. (NAN)