As the expected delivery date approached, the husband, Mr Ndubueze, spent time caressing her stomach and gladly watched the baby kick and move around the mother’s womb. “That’s my baby. He’ll surely take after me,” Ndubueze would tease the wife as he looked forward to the joy of fatherhood.

His dream came into reality on July 6 this year as the wife went into labour and was safely delivered of a baby boy. “Unfortunately,” Ndubueze said, “the baby died a few hours after delivery.”

The wife was too devastated to speak when our correspondent asked her to share her experience. But the husband, although yet to overcome the grief caused by the loss of their baby, summoned courage to relive the heartrending experience.

His words: “My wife gave birth, and shortly after she was delivered of the baby, it was observed that the baby was not breathing very well. The woman that heads the primary health centre here took delivery of the baby.

Ndubueze said after the challenge was noticed, the baby was referred to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Yenagoa; about one-hour drive.

Read Also: Tinubu commissions Tantita-sponsored projects at Kaduna’s Central Mosque
“When we were referred to Yenagoa, I asked the woman if the baby could survive travelling from Otuabagi to Yenagoa. Yet we had no choice but to follow the instruction.

“My fears were later confirmed as the baby died on the way to Yenagoa.”

Continuing, he said: “The medical officer we met at the hospital in Yenagoa still tried to use a pump-like equipment on the baby to see if she could revive him, but it was too late. She pumped and pumped to revive him to no avail.

“She later told us that the distance and stress from Otuabagi to Yenagoa compounded the baby’s health challenge. She said if they had used the equipment on the baby immediately the challenge was observed, it would have been revived.

“Unfortunately, the deceased baby was our first child.”

Ndubueze’s frustration is amplified by the fact that the massive cottage hospital in the community, which could have saved the baby’s life, is not functional.

Our findings revealed that the hospital was built by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). NDDC is a federal government agency established by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000, with the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

Some parts of the building are dilapidated. The female ward appears worse hit by the abandonment. Rain, sipping in from the leaking roof and ceiling has defaced part of the wall.

A basin placed in the ward was filled with brownish rain water coming from the roof. The ambulance donated by the NDDC is also grounded. The gigantic investment could best be described as a massive waste that forces tears out of residents’ eyes.

“If the hospital was functional, we would not have needed to travel to Yenagoa and my child would not have died,” Ndubueze said agonisingly.

With the distress caused by the baby’s death, Ndubueze said:

“The next time she gets pregnant, I will not allow her to give birth here. Never! God forbid that I allow her to give birth in this community again. I will never take that risk.

“I will do everything possible to make sure she goes to where she can have easy access to medical care the next time she gets pregnant. It is not easy for a woman to carry a pregnancy for nine months only to lose the baby at the end of the day.”

The bereaved man recalled that his wife never went to the clinic for post natal treatment. “She was seriously discouraged. It was our female relations that came to use hot water to massage her body.”

The disaster powered by the moribund Cottage Hospital had earlier been suffered by Doris, a native of the embattled community. “I lost my baby last year,” she said, struggling to relive her ordeal. “The child was over a year old when he died. He fell ill, and as we were making efforts to rush him to a hospital outside the community, the baby died.”

Doris said the challenge that claimed the child’s life happened in the dead of the night. “We hurriedly chartered a tricycle to take him to Kolo for proper medical attention but the baby died as we were driving to Kolo.”

Kolo, like Yenagoa, is far from Otuabagi. The horrible state of the road makes movement very hectic and tiring.

Asked how much she paid to go to Kolo, Doris said: “The tricycle driver charged N5,000 just to take us to Kolo. And we agreed because saving our baby’s life was more important than the financial demand. So, going to Kolo and coming back would be N10,000 when a tricycle is chartered. The road is really bad.”

Doris said prior to the time she gave birth to the deceased baby, “I used to travel to Kolo for ante-natal. I used to ride in public bus when going for ante-natal. Going and coming used to cost me N2,000.

“Members of the community who don’t have money to transport themselves to Kolo don’t go for ante-natal. They don’t see doctors at all throughout their pregnancy.”

Asked why the baby was not taken to the Cottage Hospital, Doris retorted: “There is nobody there to attend to patients. We are very sad that the cottage hospital is not functional.

“The despicable state of the hospital is really affecting us. The government should come and fix the hospital for us. The buildings are not okay.”

Baby dies in health worker’s womb

A health worker at the primary health centre in the community, Rejoice Raymond, gladly went to the clinic to give birth on April 6, this year, but the baby was found to have died in her womb.

Rejoice said: “My boss, a midwife at the health centre, was the one managing me when I was pregnant.

“I was seeing a doctor outside Otuabagi. I went to Kolo and Ogbia respectively for checks.

“I just had to travel that far to see doctors because the hospital here is not functioning.”

After the sad loss of her baby, Rejoice is scared of getting pregnant again.

“I won’t stay back here the next time I am pregnant. No, I can’t. I can’t-o.

“Incidentally, some other women in the community are not as privileged as I am to even step out of Otuabagi if they need to go and get medical help somewhere.

“As for me, I can’t stay here anymore during pregnancy. I will try not to even get pregnant for now till I move out of here.”

She also recalled how a friend of hers died with the pregnancy she was carrying, saying:

“In November last year, we lost one of my friends who was a month pregnant. I guess she had an ectopic pregnancy. Because the cottage hospital here in Otuabagi is not functional, we tried to get a vehicle to take her outside the community for treatment in Kolo. But she was declared dead on arrival when we got to the hospital.”

As a health worker and midwife, Rejoice said, “I take care of pregnant women too. Most of them are having challenges. I was a victim too.

“People go to the cottage hospital but there is always no one to attend to them there.

“I witnessed the case of one woman one day; last year to be precise.

“They were travelling when, from the bridge, we heard a cry in the vehicle conveying her. She was just shouting inside the vehicle.

“They were directed to the cottage hospital. When they got there, they opened their car and moved from room to room looking for somebody to attend to them. The woman ended up dying inside the vehicle.

“Had it been that someone was in the hospital when they drove in to seek help, the woman’s life might have been saved if there were health workers in the hospital on that day.”

With the Cottage Hospital not functional, Rejoice said, many pregnant women “are now going to traditional birth attendants who don’t have modern training regarding taking care of pregnant women. There are so many complications that can arise when they handle pregnant women.

“There are babies that come out without breathing. If nothing is done to help such babies, they can die within three minutes.

“There is an equipment we use to use to help babies breathe. When I handled one delivery sometime last year, I used it on the baby and she was revived.

“If it were at a traditional birth attendant’s place, the baby would have died. It would not have been possible for it to survive considering the situation it was in.”

Continuing, she said: “There are some other complications that arise too. When the cervix of a lady or a pregnant woman is not fully dilated and they forcibly ask her to push, because she is going through severe pain, the cervix will thicken itself thinking that the child would be in danger.

“It occurs naturally because that is how God made it. When the cervix thickens, no miracle can bring out the baby through the cervix. It has to be through an operation.

“Any delay may take the baby or even the mother’s life.”

Women relive ordeal losing two children each

It was a sad recall for another health worker in the community, Mrs Emmanuella Dennis. Asked about her ordeal, she was in tears as she recalled how she lost two children within a year.

“One of them only lived for two days before he died,” she said.

“When I gave birth to him at Kolo hospital, I was discharged and we went home without any issue.

“Two days later, he started having swollen and itchy eyes, so I took him back to the hospital in Kolo.

“Getting there, they referred me to a hospital in Ogolobri. The place is very far.

“When they referred us, I started looking for money to go there. It took a very long time before I got the money.

“When I eventually got it, it was too late and we lost him.”

Asked if she attended ante-natal care while pregnant, she said: “I was always travelling to Kolo for ante-natal care when I was carrying the pregnancy.

“It takes about 40 minutes to get to Kolo from here. It wasn’t easy travelling that far, especially as an expectant mother. But I had no alternative. There is nothing one can do than to embark on that journey.

“I lost my second child at FMC Yenagoa; even before we got to Yenagoa from here.”

Like other bereaved women in the community, he said “if the cottage hospital were functional, my babies could have been saved. If there is a functional hospital here, we can easily rush there for treatment.

“Most of my fellow women here have lost children. The government should help us.

“As I am talking to you, my four-year-old child is having itches in his private parts. I have taken him to the hospital, we ran tests and were given piriton to stop the itching.”

Also recalling her ordeal, Mrs Amangi, wife of a frontline chief in the community, said: “I lost two children in less than two years.”

Asked if the children were taken to the before they died, she swiftly responded: “Where is the hospital? There was no hospital here then. The only place we could get medical care was in Yenagoa or Port Harcourt.

“Before we would get to any of those places, we lost the children. We hadn’t even got anywhere when the children died.

“Before you move on the bad road from here to Yenagoa, if you are not lucky, you will lose the sick person. We are only living here by the grace of God.”

She regretted that “many women have continued to lose their children too.

“They said there is a hospital here, but when you get there, there is nothing happening. There is nothing in the hospital.”

Menace of under-five deaths not new in Bayelsa

Findings showed that death of children under five years is not new in Bayelsa State. In 2021, the government expressed worries over the alarming rate of under-five deaths from preventable causes.

The state’s former Commissioner for Health, Dr Pabara Newton Igwele, through his representative at a function, said about 3,500 newborns died from preventable causes in their first month of life in the state, noting that it was one of the highest in the South-South region.

He said: “In 2008 for instance, Bayelsa State had 64,000 babies delivered, out of which 3,500 died in their first month of life.

“At the time, Bayelsa had the highest under-5 mortality rate in the South-South of the country with 95 deaths per 1,000 live births.

“At present, when compared with the 2011 records, there has been a marked improvement on the number of under-5 mortality.

“Despite this, the decline in newborn mortality rate has been considerably low as newborn deaths still account for 31 per cent of the total child mortality.

“The percentage of deaths is becoming very embarrassing, and in the Southsouth, Bayelsa State is the worst and they die from preventable causes.”

The state claims it has been making delivery of medical supplies and consumables to hospitals and health centres in the hinterlands using drones.

Findings showed that the project took off in 2021 but none of such has been experienced by the people of Otuabagi.

We’ll provide answer when it is ready – NDDC

When our correspondent contacted the spokesperson of NDDC, Seledi Thompson Wakama penultimate Wednesday regarding the challenges faced by the people of Otuabagi, she said she would provide answers when she had the response.

Wakama said: “I can’t give you a time frame. I have to look for the information. I am even presently not in the office. I won’t even pick my call, but I just said no you are a public person, pick every call that comes to you.”

Further asked when the information would be provided, she retorted: “Am I in court or a tribunal? When I have the information, I will send it across to you.” She had yet to provide any response at press time.

Causes of under-five deaths –WHO

Explaining the causes of under-five deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said “globally, infectious diseases, including pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, along with pre-term birth complications, birth asphyxia and trauma and congenital anomalies remain the leading causes of death for children under five years.“

The WHO noted that access to basic lifesaving interventions such as skilled delivery at birth, postnatal care, breastfeeding and adequate nutrition, vaccinations and treatment for common childhood diseases can save many young lives.

It added that “malnourished children, particularly those with severe acute malnutrition, have a higher risk of death from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria.

“Nutrition-related factors contribute to about 45% of deaths in children under five years of age.”

Bayelsa commissioner declines comment

Efforts to get the reaction of the Bayelsa State Commissioner for Health, Prof Seiefa Brisibie on what the government is doing about the predicament of the embattled people were unsuccessful. Messages sent to him via WhatsApp and text messages were not replied.

WhatsApp report showed that the message was delivered at 5:22 pm on Thursday and read by the commissioner but didn’t reply.