Borno’s health commissioner, Baba Mallam, has blamed the rate at which Nigerian women die during child birth on indecision by most families.

Mr Mallam spoke on Monday when he received a donation of two tricycle ambulances from Doctors Without Borders in Maiduguri.

“There are many reasons Nigerian women are dying at the point of labour. The indecision by the family of the pregnant woman during labour has been a major cause of women’s deaths. The indecision comes in because the pregnant women are surrounded by families.

“They tell them, no, you can do it. Give it a push, and from one hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, after the woman is exhausted, they now say you can go to the hospital, and there is a problem of transportation, she doesn’t have a car, and their neighbours do not have a vehicle and, therefore, this adds to the quagmire,” the health commissioner explained.

Mr Mallam said available statistics show that 120 Nigerian women die hourly due to delivery-related complications. According to him, Nigeria is only better than Southern Sudan and Chad in the world in terms of maternal mortality.

“Nigeria contributes 28.9 per cent of maternal deaths in the world. It is important for Nigerians to realise this. Despite the fact that Nigeria’s economy is one of the best in Africa, our medical indices are very poor.

“We are 200 million now and by 2050 we will be more than 400 million and that will make Nigeria the third largest country, in terms of population after India and China.

“You can imagine how many pregnant women will be dying. At the moment, every two minutes, the country loses a woman during delivery in Nigeria. So, if we spent 10 minutes here, 20 women would have died. So, it is very important we realise this as Nigerians and take everything necessary to mitigate this carnage of young women,” he stressed.

Mr Mallam stressed that this also includes newborns because “they suffer from simple basic problems.”

“As I speak here, children are dying from a blockage of airway to breathing and Nigeria is number three or four in the world, in terms of death of newborns,” Mr Mallam pointed out.

(NAN)