A local midwife, Liyatu Ayuba, has spoken about delivering 125 babies at an IDP camp.
Ayuba who is also the women leader of the Internally Displaced Persons, Durumi camo, Garki advised the women to embrace family planning.
See all your latest health news updates here
The women leader said she became a midwife after pregnant women in the camp met rejections at government hospitals.
Ayuba joined the IDPs in Garki after her husband was killed by Boko Haram insurgents in 2015.
She said that since then, she has successfully aided the delivery of 125 children in the camp.
Read the latest health news in Nigeria on COVID-19 confirmed cases
In a chat with newsmen, Ayuba revealed why pregnant women from the IDP camp were denied care by government hospitals. She said pregnant women were denied access to care due to their inability to pay bills.
The women leader said this has caused the death of some women at the National Hospital. She gave an instance of a woman who died because she could not afford a cesarean section.
She said, “A few years ago, a lady came to this camp and she was 7 months pregnant. She came barefoot with only a wrapper and she didn’t have a bacha (hut). So, she was squatting on another person’s own.
“The next three days, she was in labour. We took her to the National Hospital in Abuja here and we were told to bring 100,000. But we told them that we do not have that money that they should please try and save her life.
“They said they can’t do anything, that we IDPs are disturbing them. That was how the woman and her baby died in the hospital. They even refused to release the corps for us because we could not pay.”
Also, read the latest health news in Nigeria on COVID-19 Omicron Variant
She said that this particular incident motivated her to become a midwife so she could save the lives of the women in the camp.
“I learnt how to be a midwife from my grandmother. I started delivering babies on January 2, 2015.
So, from that year till date, I have delivered a total of 125 babies in this camp.”
Ayuba also said that she had been educating women in the camp about family planning. This would enable them to manage the little resources they have to cater for a few children.
“I have been telling them that people who have four to five children should do family planning. This is because we are facing a lot in this camp and we are not collecting a salary.
“And these children are not going to school and women keep getting pregnant. God will hold us responsible for the children that we are bringing to this world without training them,” she noted.
Source: Daily Post