Nigeria loses 59,000 pregnant women annually

I have already highlighted the embrassing Nigerian maternal mortality rates in a previous post but today the Punch-Nigeria's most widely read newspaper has published an article on the governments latest efforts to combat this problem.

The sum of N9bn has been allocated to 12 states to help train the appropiate specialists and update the facilities in state obstetric units.

This is an issue that the Flying Doctors has and will continue to lobby about, as well as provide critical care transport for these women and their often critically ill newborns.

Dr Da Vinci hopes that at least some of this funding will make it through Nigeria's funnel of corruption (pictured above).

In Support Of Dr Kim Holt

Excerpt From The Times (02/10)

David Holt said his wife, Kim, a consultant of 25 years' standing, was "in shock" after the world-famous hospital advertised her job recently without even telling her.

"She couldn't believe it," he said. "She was speechless. This kind of behaviour completely blows out of the water any belief in the hospital's good faith, or their ability to change the oppressive culture Kim has experienced."

The move is the latest in a string of cases where the NHS's promises to protect whistle-blowers have proved false.

The inquiry into the Stafford hospital scandal has heard how medical staff who tried to warn of fatal failings at the trust were threatened into silence by NHS managers.

This month, a London consultant, Ramon Niekrash, won an employment tribunal case against Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, after he was victimised for raising concerns about cost-cutting.

Dr Holt's MP, Lynne Featherstone, has said that colleagues who supported Dr Holt are being "bullied" and "pressured" by the hospital.

However, further staff have come forward to speak of serious problems at Great Ormond Street.

In December, Great Ormond Street promised to reach a "swift and amicable solution" with Dr Holt after a damning NHS London report largely vindicated her criticisms of the child abuse clinic in Haringey, for which Great Ormond Street provided the doctors.

Dr Holt has spent the last three years on "special leave" since warning – more than a year before Baby P came to the clinic – that she and other doctors there were dangerously overworked and a child would die unless action was taken.

Dr Da Vinci is once again fuming! A brilliant physician working at a world renowned centre with a global reputation in her speciality is being hounded out of her job!
Her crime? Raising concerns about the safety of her patients.

At a time that we are desperate for peadiatricians Dr Holt; a gifted and experienced peadiatrician has been on 'leave' for a whole THREE YEARS.

I often look back home to the UK as a model for Nigeria to follow especially in terms of healthcare policy, but incidents like this show that corruption is indeed endemic is every society and requires people to unite and take a stand against it!

In Nigeria, the Flying Doctors Nigeria continue to work with the government to develop the healthcare system. We also encourage an open culture of reflective learning in our own organisation; reviewing and examining each step of every mission.

I am thankful that I am in the position to do this. Every doctor should be able to look at the structure of their organisation and constructively critisise it with a view to improvement. We are our patients advocates. This is our raison d'etre.

This is true patient centred care.

The Home Birth Nightmare + Maternal Death In Nigeria

In the UK, home births are the fashionable thing to do. The propaganda tells women they should experience the birthing process without nasty little interventionalist doctors and midwives, in spite of the fact it takes very experienced midwives off of the ward and down winding, isolated country roads, to the front rooms of some times quite high risk women who have decided the 'natural' birthing option.

That said many ladies opt for a home birth after they have experienced labour once or twice, it is usually quite quick and they have been judged by an experienced consultant as low-risk by looking at age , family history, co-morbidities etc. Other ladies have had pretty bad experiences in hospital and have since developed an aversion to them. This is also very understandable.

This is not to say that women should not have a choice over how and where they give birth. I would hate to insinuate that. But in my experience the NHS is often too understaffed to provide that personal one2one service that a home birth requires without posing a risk to the ladies birthing on the ward. Furthermore, if complications arise at the home birth, it becomes a horrible nightmare. The worst kind of nightmare......or so I thought, pre-Nigeria.


Managing obstetric emergencies is going to be a large part the work of the Flying Doctors. This is why every doctor that works with the service must hold a full MOET qualification or it's equivalent.

The 'nightmare' situation I described in the UK that occurs when home births go wrong, pails in conparision to what we face in Nigeria. Despite having some of Africa's most skilled obsteric surgeons and midwifes, we are faced with a lack of beds and equipment.

In Nigeria 59,000 women die during or soon after childbirth every year. This maternal mortality rate is the second highest in the entire world! The country is home to 2 percent of the global population, but 10 percent of all maternal deaths take place here.

The task before Flying Doctors is to try and reduce this number by providing rapid, cost-effective transport to the RIGHT facility for these critically ill ladies who develop complications during childbirth.

The homebirth nightmare I described in the first few paragraphs experienced when I worked in the UK is a very different kind of beast to the one we experience in Nigeria. I dare say, it's like comparing a squeaky mouse to a howling werewolf complete with a full set of fangs.

The true solution to the problem can only come from a joint effort from not-for-profit organisations like the Flying Doctors, government agencies, doctors/midwives and hospitals with international support.

This is an issue that our team at the Flying Doctor continues to help tackle and we remain hopeful and optimistic that the our shocking maternals mortality statistics are set to improve in the near future.