You Wish To Have Your Baby Through CS In Yenagoa? Please Load your pocket

In the early and late 70s, pregnant women used to deliver their babies through the natural way. After nine months of bearing their pregnancy and labour came calling, our mothers, especially those who lived in the remote villages, would visit any nearby traditional birth attendant and the next thing you would hear is the cry of a newborn baby. In some cases, we have heard of pregnant women who went to their farms and delivered on their ways back home without the help of birth attendants or midwives. We have equally had cases where women who went to church services and delivered right in the church as they were caught up with labour.
In times past, it was almost a taboo for a woman to deliver through Caesarean Section (CS). It was, indeed, a very rare case for a pregnant woman to pass through Caesarean delivery. Before a surgical operation could be conducted on a pregnant woman who is due for delivery, it would have been medically proven to be a severely critical condition in which caesarean section becomes the only way out.
For instance, if the baby were breeched or was too big to be naturally pushed down by the mother, then surgical procedure had to be followed to ensure the safety of the mother and her baby. Such cases were usually one among hundreds of women who delivered naturally and safely too.
Ludicrously, the reverse has now become the case in Nigeria, predominantly in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital. Though vaginal delivery is medically proven to be the safest way of child birth, doctors of nowadays often go for C-section which medical experts describe as more complicated and poses health risks for the mother and her baby. Some of the risks associated with C-section, according to medical reports, include blood loss, organ damage, allergic reaction to anaesthesia, infections and blood clots. Other risks posed by delivery through surgery are longer stay in the hospital and longer days of recovery as well as huge financial burden. Delivery through caesarean section also may need the same process by the victim in subsequent pregnancy.
Despite the above associated risks, caesarean delivery is becoming a practice in Yenagoa. Independent investigations by TNN reveal that out of every 10 pregnant women in Yenagoa and its immediate environs, six now give birth through caesarean delivery while only four do it the normal way. Our checks further reveal that there is more to the current trend regarding women delivery pattern than meets the eye.
TNN authoritatively gathered that the quest for illicit money making is largely responsible for the prevalence of saesarean delivery in most hospitals and maternity homes these days. We learnt that there are shady arrangements between nurses working in health centres and doctors in hospitals who specialize in surgical operations on pregnant women otherwise referred to as Caesarean Section. According to our checks, nurses in many of the clinics and maternity homes are now secretly playing the role of agents to medical directors particularly those running private hospitals.
It was learnt that these nurses specialize in referring their pregnant clients to private hospitals for caesarean sections and in turn get their commissions for every referral made. As a result of the financial gains attached, it was gathered, nurses are no longer interested in the natural way of women delivery. They now treacherously fabricate reasons why unsuspecting expectant mothers should go for caesarean delivery. They give their victims all manner of frightening reasons and at last refer them to their preferred hospitals for surgical operations where their commissions will be guaranteed thereafter.
TNN scoop reveal that a government health centre at Yenizuegene community in the state capital is notorious for the racket act. It was learnt that the senior nurses at the said health centre have made it a practice to refer almost every of their clients to a particular private hospital at INEC Road, Kpansia in Yenagoa where they reportedly receive between N30,000 to N20,000 as commission per each referral made.
A pregnant woman, who narrated her ordeal in the hands of the racketeer nurses, told TNN that she narrowly escaped the illicit act at the said health centre, noting that though the various pregnancy tests and scans she ran proved that her foetus was viable and well positioned, the nurses told her at the point of labour that she would not be able to deliver naturally but through C-section.
She said “in the course of my pregnancy, I underwent three pregnancy scans in different diagnostic centres. I even did one a day before my labour started and all showed that my baby was normal and well positioned. But when I got to the health centre at Yenizuegene where I registered and told the senior nurse on duty that labour had started, she checked me and said there was no way I could deliver naturally. She further told me that there were two places where they normally referred pregnant women to for CS, one at INEC Road and the other at Bay bridge road, all in Kpansia community in Yenagoa.
“She insisted that I must go to either of the two places she told me to go to or my baby would die in my stomach, insisting that my baby was breeched and that the baby’s respiratory rate had gone so low and may result to the baby’s death soonest. She also specified that each of the hospitals she mentioned collects between N180,000 and N200,000 respectively for their surgical operational services. That was when l remembered what my neighbour told me that there are extortionist nurses in that health centre whose stock in trade was to refer pregnant women to a hospital for CS and get commission in return, but I wouldn’t listen.
“Immediately, l asked my husband to take me out of the health centre to another place and that same day, l delivered my baby naturally. That was how God saved us from borrowing and the many complications that are associated with caesarean delivery.” She called on the state ministry of health to critically monitor all health institutions, both private and public, operating in the state with a view to nipping the ugly trend in the bud.
Other eye witnesses who spoke to TNN concerning the situation said many families had been thrown into untold hardship as a result of forced caesarean delivery as some of the surgeons who carry out the surgical operations were not well trained, thereby causing serious complications such as organ damage and blood loss which had led to death of many women while others have been rendered barren for life. Some families who are lucky to go through the unnatural process during delivery have to contend with how to get funds to pay for the cost of the operation on one side and also have to face the cost of feeding and taking care of the nursing mother on the other hand. In their respective views, this new trend where medical practitioners make brisk money to the detriment of unsuspecting expectant mothers must stop forthwith.