Monday 6 February 2012

The Damaged Womb

There is no gain saying that the health delivery system, especially in developing countries such as Nigeria, has ceased to be threatened by the activities of pseudo medical practitioners who often claim to have exhaustive knowledge of all dimensions of medical practice. The result of the activities of these charlatans, otherwise known as quacks, has
over the years been visibly detrimental to the nation's health status and this phenomenon has lately assumed an alarming and uncompromising proportion and so calls for a proactive and urgent attention, if the image of this nation must be redeemed and made to have a recognition in this regard in the world community.

Regrettably, the activities of such people apparently find expression among other things, in the administration of fake and expired drugs believed to aid the termination of pregnancy, insertion of unsterilized instrument such as foetus evacuation tubes and cutters, and the use of some locally made concoctions also believed to be efficient in the termination of pregnancy. A number of reasons have been advanced for the patronage of such quack medical practitioners. Such reasons range from the low cost of it to ignorance. However plausible these reasons might seem, the incontestable truth 
remains that the adverse effect of such act far out-weighs its purported good side, as it often results in either deformation of the unborn baby(that is if it is not successful) or termination of life. Such was the case of a pretty and promising young girl of 16 years of age(Named Onyero) in early 1993 in Alisimie community, Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State who had a recourse to such act.


According to her, the so called medical practitioner she went to see with her problem of unwanted pregnancy was a well known patient medicine dealer within the locality. The man(Mr. Abaye), middle aged, claimed to have got expert knowledge of the business. He had attended to countless number of persons before she became a victim. She was attended to and shortly after that, there arose some complications within her uterus. She began to bleed ceasely. This made her to go back to the man(Mr. Abaye) for remedy and she was given some medications which heightened the situation. She was left with no option other than to seek medical attention in the Central Hospital, Agbor where she was told that her womb had been damaged and all that was needed to be done to save her life was to cut off her womb. Till date, she remains without a womb and this has cost her two marriages as she could not bear a for her husbands. Today, she lives in regret, in pain and dejection as she has become a laughing stock within her community

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