Leadership (Abuja)
Vincent Ekhoragbon
25 August 2008
Gombe Specialist Hospital Medical Director, Dr. James Madi, has renewed the call on women in the state to take advantage of the free ante-natal care provided by government in order to avoid complications.
He said the maternal mortality toll which shot up to 107 per 100,000 in the state some years ago prompted the free service which took effect from July 13, 2006, adding that death rate has since depreciated.
The number of women who trooped into the hospital for ante-natal services before it was made free may have shot astronomically from 150 per week to almost 400 but it is still not encouraging enough he said.
Dr. Madi, while blaming the poor response of ante-natal services on ignorance, poverty, traditional practices and religious beliefs, said husbands also share in the blame.
He, therefore, advised husbands to not only encourage their wives to patronise clinics for ante-natal care when their wives were pregnant, but also to give them the leverage to do so even without permission.
He said certain maternal deaths have been avoided or forestalled but most of them came from delay due to distance, intra-family communication and insensitivity to the dangers of delaying.
The medical director explained that in addition to the available state-of-the-art equipment, the hospital, by the time recruitment of personnel was completed, would have enough hands to meet the optimal level required by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
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