By Austine Emmanuel, Kaduna
Kaduna based Journalist with the Sun Newspaper, Shola Ojo has narrated how he and his wife lost their expected first child to brain drain during delivery in Kaduna.
Shola, while lamenting the ugly incident in a write-up to narrate his ordeal, said he explored every available option to save the lives of his wife and the baby but Nigeria’s system failed him.
He said that they approached the two biggest hospitals, 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, (44NARH) and Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital (BDTH) in Kaduna town at exactly 3:00am and 3:35am respectively, only to discover that there was no doctor on ground to carry out a cesarean session (CS) on the wife.
Recall that the Nigerian Medical Association, (NMA) has decried the deplorable state of health facilities in the country, stating severally that State hospitals across the country are the worst hit by brain drain in recent times.
In the write-up titled, “When 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital (44NARH) Kaduna and Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital (BDTH) don’t make sense,” Ojo explained that the labour started at about 1:30am, but the CS was later carried out on the wife almost at day break in a private hospital, leading to the death of their baby.
Ojo and his wife have been waiting on God for over 8-years, since their marriage solemnisation for a child.
The expectant parent, said that he put a call across to all the contacts of some of the doctors he has relationship working with the hospital, but they all failed him as none of them could pick up their calls only to call back in the morning to apologise.
“After eight years of our solemnisation with much prayer and effort, God remembered us and we became expectant parents. My wife and I. We took everything from the spiritual and physical realms about our baby very seriously after all, we waited for her.
“On that Saturday, Nov 4 at about the time I mentioned, we raced down to these two hospitals at breakneck speed to save the mother and our very precious gift whose time to be introduced into the world was due.
“Behold, there was no doctor on duty at the maternity section of the imaginary discipline hospital like 44NARF because of the antecedent of its owner – The great Nigerian Army known for its high level of professionalism laced with discipline.
“I remember we met two nurses at the facility who advised us to move to another hospital. The two of them suggested Barau Dikko. Though they felt concerned, but, this was not about ‘push’ ‘push’ delivery they could possibly handle.
“Again, we raced down to Barau Dikko. On getting there at about 3:25 a.m. that same day, I was moving from one unit to the other banging on the doors and shouting ‘anyone here,’ ‘any doctor or nurse on duty.’ There was a pin-drop silence all over the place except for a few people who were fast asleep on the hospital terrace. I suspect they were also stranded Nigerians in need of help.
“At about that time, my loving wife was already getting tired. She was trying not to show it by singing praises. My wife is a child of God. She cares and loves people around her to a fault. She was singing just to keep our hope alive. That also helped in fixing my eyes on our Maker, especially after being faithful in my marriage for eight years and eight months,” Ojo narrated.