Pregnant Women Stranded As Dearth Of Midwives Hits Akwa Ibom Hospitals

Widespread anxiety has enveloped the health sector in Akwa Ibom State as pregnant women across virtually all government hospitals appear in a fixed, following mass retirement of midwives in the state, our correspondent revealed yesterday.

At the Anua General Hospital in Uyo, the state capital and other public hospitals, it was gathered that only severe cases of pregnant women in labour are attended by the few professional medics on ground and a scanty number of professional midwives.

“We have to attend to the severe cases of women in serious pressure under labour, while the less pressing ones have had to be referred because of inadequate midwives,” a senior nursing officer explained to our correspondent.

It was learnt that because of the prevailing cash crunch facing the country, many of the expectant mothers, especially the less-privileged ones, now have to seek the assistance of traditional birth attendants in the rural communities, while others who could afford it take their cases to more expensive private hospitals.

“I was referred to the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH) due to shortage of midwives at the maternity wards in the state government – owned public hospital, which is more affordable,”  an expectant mother Mayen Etuk told this newspaper.

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The state’s commissioner for health, Prof. Augustine Vincent Umoh, who admitted the challenge yesterday, explained that arrangements were already in place to hire some of the retired, but still active midwives as a stop-gap measure towards addressing such medical emergencies.

“What we are trying to do now to contain the situation is to hire the services of some retired midwives as a temporary measure to fill the vacuum,” Umoh said.

According to him, the state governor, Udom Emmanuel, has invested so much in the health sector, providing quality manpower and standard medical infrastructure across key General Hospitals, as well as building new ones in some Local Government Areas including Etim Ekpo local government area, to stop rural-urban migration for medical issues.