When antenatal is a luxury: the IDP story

Antenatal care is one of the measures to help curb the global menace of maternal health problems. They exist in most primary healthcare facilities. But lack of money has made this otherwise readily available service, inaccessible for displaced persons in the Federal Capital Territory. They say the almost 100 percent difference in cost for accessing the care in the FCT as against what they paid for it back home before Boko Haram attacks, has made it a luxury they can do without

Pulwa Achaba, 23, is five months pregnant with her fourth child. She fled Kuda, Adamawa State in 2016 after it was sacked by Boko Haram. She now lives in Gongola, a camp where internally displaced persons reside in Abuja.

For her previous pregnancies, Achaba said she diligently went for antenatal sessions at the Cottage Hospital Gulak, Adamawa State, where it cost a maximum of N200 to register and transportation was N50 at the most.

Although she was registered to receive free treatment at the Asokoro General Hospital, Abuja by the FCT Emergency Management Agency, paying N700 once a week for her antenatal session, she said, “is way too much for me. I cannot afford it; N700 is luxury where I come from. It is big money.”

This is the reason she has not attended a single session since she got pregnant – a fact her mother, Cecilia Joseph, who was a Junior Community Health Institution worker in Gulak, only discovered during our reporter’s conversation with her daughter.

Saratu Adamu, 26, was displaced from Gulak. She is five months pregnant and has since 2015, lived in Kuchigoro one of the host communities in Abuja where IDPs live. She was diagnosed with jaundice at the early stage of her pregnancy and given medication for it. But lack of funds has prevented her from attending antenatal sessions and restocking on her medication comprising blood tonic, and Folic Acid which she ought to take for the duration of her pregnancy.

The mother of three said she had to pay N3,000 registration fees at the AMAC Hospital Kuchigoro but went there, only because she took ill with malaria.

She said, “That was when the doctor told me I had jaundice and put me on medication. I cannot afford to pay the N300 for every antenatal session and cover the transportation cost to and fro every time I have to go.

“In my village I paid N200 to register for antenatal card and only N50 for a return trip to the hospital. The sessions were free,” she said.

The story isn’t different for displaced persons in Orozo, a suburb where IDPs have settled and New Kuchigoro another camp in the FCT.

A mother of two, Liyatu Ayuba, 24, in her third pregnancy, had her first antenatal session at eight months. This was thanks to a medical outreach in Orozo by an NGO. She said she was not registered in any hospital because she couldn’t afford to pay N3,500 at the closest hospital to her as against the N150 it cost her in Gwoza, Borno State before Boko Haram chased her out of her home.

In 2015 floods chased Ummita Sule, 27 and her family from their home in Darazo, Bauchi State. It destroyed their farmland and house, forcing them to relocate to New Kuchigoro.

The shy mother of two toddlers and a three month-old considers herself lucky to be in this camp because, “We get a lot of help from NGOs who also give us medical care. It was because they came here I was able to go for antenatal. Otherwise, I would never have been able to afford it.

“One of the NGOs also helped pay my medical bill when I went to give birth.”