Fear heightens as pregnancy develops, and the imminent labour instills jitters.

Pregnancy and successful childbirth are things that thrill most married women, but among women in Marke Village of Dambatta Local Government Area of Kano State and Bardo, a rural community in Taura Local Government Area of Jigawa State, instead, these periods bring nightmare due to decrepit or non-existent health facilities.

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Malam Abdulmumin Yau, a cart operator in Marke Village, Dambatta Local Government Area of Kano State, is usually engaged by members of the community to transport the sick, especially pregnant women, to the nearest health facility which is about 20 kilometers from the village.

But around 2:00am on Wednesday last week, he was not on duty.

A woman was in labour and his cart would be too slow for the journey.

The family then hired a motorcycle to do the job.

But the baby was too much in a hurry for the bike ride, and the woman delivered on the way.

The motorcyclist returned to the village to get a local midwife to the spot to attend to the woman.

Malam Yau said: “On this cart, I have taken women to Dambatta town for delivery several times, on a few occasions they gave birth before we got there.”

The village head of Marke, Shuaibu Galadima, said the hospital had received several visitation panels from the government to see to its rehabilitation but nothing had improved there.

“State officials and even people from the MDG office in Abuja came but up till now it couldn’t be fixed.

“We only got a shop that we converted to a clinic where patients are treated by visiting health workers from the local government headquarters once in a month,” he said.

In Marke, he said, maternal deaths are recorded very often, a situation compounded by the absence of a hospital.

As a result, families and friends are usually frightened on the approach of pregnancies.

“For over 10 years, this community has been engaging the services of bull cart operators and motorcyclists to convey pregnant women, the sick and the elderly through a difficult road to Dambatta town to access health care.

“The community with over 2,000 households has no single health facility as the last one standing has become so dilapidated and a shadow of itself.

“The community through self help secured a shop that is being used as a makeshift clinic for a visiting nurse that comes at least once a month.

“The deteriorating condition of the clinic started when rain took off its roof, it was not fixed and with time it continued to deteriorate,” the village head said.

Our correspondent gathered from health authorities that the state is one the states in the country with a high maternal mortality rate.

The village head said: “This hospital has been like this for over 10 years.

“Then when functional we enjoyed it to the fullest, even beds were there for sick people to be admitted.

“There came a time that all things got rotten.

“We are having problems with our pregnant women when in labour, coupled with the bad road, and there is no support for us.

“Our sick are ferried to Fagalawa town or Dambatta General Hospital where we don’t appreciate their services, and that sometimes forces us to move to Kazaure in Jigawa State for health needs.

He added: “We cannot account for the number of women we lose from pregnancy related cases due to the lack of  a health facility in this community.

“From the time the hospital got dilapidated, at least six deaths occur from such situations every month due to the absence of a functional hospital.

“Last week, four women were rushed to Dambatta and Fagalawa where they delivered.

“A nurse comes here from Sharbe village to support us but despite being a man we allow him to check our women.”

Another resident said: “We want the government to fix the hospital and get us health workers so that we can get good healthcare.

“Even yesterday, my wife gave birth but was attended to by a local midwife I called to help.

“Before now, a woman was coming to assist us when we transformed that makeshift shop into a clinic but not anymore.”

Yakubu Inuwa, a resident, lost his pregnant wife last year due to complications and his mother in-law three years ago.

He said both women were rushed to the Dambatta hospital when labour started.

“My late wife was rushed that fateful night and operated upon. She did her ante-natal at this makeshift clinic, then the nurse was visiting but not anymore. Even Mamus, my neighbour’s pregnant wife, died from child birth also. My mother in-law died from child birth three years ago, they all died on the road as we were rushing them to Dambatta hospital on keke (tricycle). It was my late wife’s first pregnancy while my mother in-law left nine children,” he added.

Another resident, Mamman Marke, said the absence of a functional hospital was seriously affecting them.

“We have complained several times to concerned ministries and even the office of the Secretary to the State Government to come over and help us with a hospital and road.

“We went again and again, we have been there over 12 times since the Shekarau, Kwankwaso eras and now the Ganduje administration.

“We were told to exercise patience, that the resources weren’t there, this is our predicament.

“Today, if a woman is in labour and the rain begins there is no way we can take her to hospital.

“Women climb carts to go to a clinic. Many women have died due to labour.

“Some deliver on the way while the unlucky ones die along the road.

“The only thing this government can do for us to pacify us is to construct this road and build a hospital for us.

“We don’t even need electricity,  these two things are our priorities.

“We have been patient all this while but up till now our plea is unheeded,” he added.

NGO comes to the rescue

Daily Trust gathered that a non-governmental organization, Bridge Connect Africa, is intervening by launching a transport system that will be owned and led by women in the community and its environs.

It’s Executive Director, Sani Muhammad, said; “The Community Emergency Transport Fund is for emergency cases, a system where an emergency fund is donated to the facility and in collaboration with the NURTW, the Ministry of Health is reached to ensure that when there is an emergency, the community members would call and the driver would drive down to transport the patient to the facility.”

“This arrangement is going to be a temporary solution before the community gets a new health care facility.

“This will increase access to maternal health services through provision of affordable and timely means of transportation to health facilities as well as getting skilled health personnel to attend to them.

“We however use this opportunity to call on the Kano State government to attend to the concerns of the people of Marke community and build a primary healthcare facility to serve this very vulnerable population of women and girls, and members who for the past 10 years, have not got access to a primary healthcare,” he said.

Kano State govt reacts

When contacted, the Kano State Commissioner for Health, Dr Aminu Tsanyawa, said the ministry had no such formal complaint before it but with this enquiry, officials would be deployed there to assess the situation and find out what had happened all along as well as the workers’ status.

“This is one cardinal area this administration is focusing on that in the next four years there will be renovation and upgrade of health facilities to ensure universal health coverage, we will revive all facilities at the primary level to decongest secondary facilities and provide services close to the people,” he said.

“In every ward of the state there will be a  functional primary health care facility that will provide services needed,” he assured.

In Bardo, Jigawa State, women take their destiny in their own hands

One of the constitutional responsibilities any government owes its citizens is to provide them  basic social amenities like education, quality healthcare, good road networks and those things that would make life worth living.

That appears not the case presently in Bardo, a rural community in Taura Local Government Area of Jigawa State.

Faced with these challenges, the people of this community have decided to take their fates into their own hands.

Monday’s train accident in Lagos, which claimed one life, has further made safety measures on railway corridors more imperative.

From Ijoko in Ogun State to Iddo in Lagos where the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) currently operates the mass transit service,  there are no fewer than 10 stops where trains wait for passengers to alight.

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Some of the stations on the old narrow gauge tracks include Kajola, Opo Suuru, Agbado, Iju, Agege, Sogunle, Mushin, Oshodi, Agege and Itoki, among others.

Trains usually stopped on these stations before the suspension of train service due to Covid-19.

But on resumption of services on Monday, the new rules aimed at aligning with the COVID-19 protocols have stopped trains from waiting at each of these locations as they now operate from Ijoko to Ebute-Metta Junction.

But at each of these locations, it has become a norm for traders, especially, to take over the tracks.

One of such traders is Marcel Maduka, a bag seller who displays his wares on the rail tracks at Agege.

On a visit to this location especially in the evening, one would be astonished with the hundreds of traders displaying their wares on the rail track. Maduka said, “We are all hustling my brother.

Majority of us here cannot afford to rent a shop. So we are all hustling here.”

The situation is not different in Ikeja Along, Oshodi, Mushin, Yaba and Tejuosho.

Most times traders would hurriedly remove their wares from the rail tracks on sighting an oncoming train only to return as soon as it passes by.

In Oshodi, it was however observed that the incursion on the tracks was minimized following the erection of barb wires in some parts.

However, Monday’s accident happened around the level crossing at Oshodi.

The two vehicles involved were a bus with registration number GGE 972 GE with six passengers and a Toyota Highlander with number FST 723 FL which was parked on the tracks.

The bus which had six passengers was said to have attempted to cross the tracks before the arrival of the train when he got stuck and subsequently collided with the train.

All the six passengers were however lucky to have escaped with minor injuries as they were treated and discharged on the spot.

The driver of the Toyota Highlander identified as Christopher Ugobidi, a shoe merchant, was said to have left his car on the tracks while waiting for the gate of a shopping mall to open.

He suddenly sighted the train approaching and immediately rushed to rescue his son who was said to be asleep in the car.

The train crushed him while his son was severely injured.

Scores of parents, teachers and proprietors of private schools, on Friday, protested against the continued closure of schools in Kwara State.

The protesters argued that the long closure of schools had ruined the lives of many of their wards, noting that many female children had been impregnated.

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Holding placards, the protesters were at the office of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) in Ilorin, the state capital.