“Our people are now aware of the need to visit the hospital during pregnancy”
A story of community change from Cross River state
Our village is a rural community with two major roads leading into it, no electricity and no health center. We are mostly peasant farmers and petty traders.
My late mother was a traditional birth attendant, and in those days pregnant women rarely went to the hospital but preferred to come to her for native treatment. Women at that time believed that a pregnant woman should not go to the hospital because she would be given some drugs that could disturb her. After that time many pregnant women had problems during delivery, some bled to death and others lost their child. When these things happened, no one knew what the cause was. At times it was attributed to witches and wizards as well as to old people in the community. Husbands of such wives didn’t have the slightest idea of the need to take them to the hospital. Most of the time, they complained of lack of money others would said “in times past our mothers and grandmothers didn’t go to the hospital but delivered at home.”
When CIET brought this programme we saw the docudrama. We realized that the things that were happening to our wives which were attributed to witches and wizards were the result of not taking proper care and not giving correct treatment to our wives. I collected the docudrama from the CIET Yala team, I met with the village head and we talked about the possibility of screening it for the people. When we eventually did it, many people came out and watched.
After watching, a woman who was present came and told me she was 5 months pregnant but that her husband had refused to give her money to register in the hospital and was even compelling her to go the farm all the time. I went to the village head and told him. Together we met the husband and asked him to register his wife. I asked him “Isn’t it better to save a life than bury a dead person? If your wife dies and your child also dies – borrowing money to bury them or to save them, which one do you prefer?” he kept quiet and bowed his head. We told him that if anything happens to the woman that the entire community will not be happy with him. The man reacted positively as he was able to raise money for his wife to go to the hospital. At the end of the day, she delivered safely. When the news of her delivery came everybody was happy.
Now we have made a law which makes it mandatory for anyone who refuses to register their wife during pregnancy to pay a fine. Presently, people are embracing this programme and have come to accept the film as being very educative.
This story is significant because our people are now aware of the need to visit the hospital during pregnancy. The community has changed from what it used to be before the introduction of this programme. From 2010 till now, there havebeen no deaths during pregnancy or child birth.
Return to the voices page or to the most significant change page.