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Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Incredible:Midwives use lantern during deliveries at Kiyi health centre In Abuja

I Cant believe that in this 21st century Nigeria, light is a luxury in a place as critical as a maternity center.
 
This is How Daily Trust captured the story 
 
 
 
 
The Kiyi Primary Healthcare centre in Kiyi is one of the 42 newly built model healthcare centers in the FCT.
Secured by a fence, a security operative and segmented into various departments; stocked with necessary facilities and drugs and seasoned with competent hands including Sure-P midwives but unavailability of essential amenities undermines its optimal usage by the residents.

The center, located in the remote community in Kwali Area Council as revealed by one of the staff midwife, Mrs. Ebere Ekawagera, is without potable water and electricity and as such health workers improvise by using and relying on water vendors or relatives of patients to get water.

“Among the challenges we are facing here is that the clinic does not have light, electricity is very important because we need to sterilize some equipment. They [area council] have not connected it, so we make use of our lantern in the night, it is a major problem because we are using lantern whenever we have delivery in the night,” she said.

Just as the lack of electricity renders the equipment useless, non-payment of impress, as she said, made the use of the center's power generating set, usually fuelled from the health workers’ purse, difficult.

Water poses another herculean before the health workers at the center, as the importance of potable water to any health establishment cannot be over emphasised.
She said the workers also took it upon themselves to buy water from water vendors while available helping hands are also used.

“We don’t have a borehole, but we buy water…. Water is very necessary in the clinic because of the time we have deliveries, [so] most of the people that come with patients are instructed to get water for the woman that is about to deliver,” she said.
She however applauded the authorities for the deployment of three Sure-P midwives to the center, which sum the number of technical staff to 12. She said there was no record of maternal death since the coming of the Sure-P midwives in October 2012.
“At the centre, delivery is free while the mother is given a Mama kit as part of the Sure-P programme in the centre. So Sure-P now provided us with Mama kit, when a woman is in labor, we give them a kit for the delivery and some items to go home with free to ensure that the mother and child are in good condition.”
 “Since the inception of the Sure-P, we have not recorded any death. Delivery is free and we have taken about 25 deliveries,” she added.
Among items included in the Mama kit are hand gloves, mucous extractor, baby swipes, toiletries, and sanitary pad.
She appealed to the authorities to sink a borehole and connect the centre to power source in order to enhance the performance of the centre.

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