Yet Another Death....Fuck that TBA

When I got home last night, I was told about an incident that happened in the eastern town of Mbale. It is about death, this time, a senseless one that could have been avoided. The sad thing, it is a woman who died of complications from childbirth, a traditional birth attendant that insisted she could go on with it yet it was clear that the woman needed qualified medical attention.

It makes me angry at how some of these things happen and the cost is greater in terms of human lives lost. A young woman gone in her prime, leaving behind her partner and a young child who expected a brother or sister [I didn't kow the sex] to play with .

Though I didn't want to highlight another death story. I will briefly recount it.

This young woman was an older sister to my housemaid. She had been pregnant and was due over the weekend. She goes to a traditional birth attendant (TBA), while there it is discovered that the child is in a breech position. The TBA reassures her and the people who had come with her that all will be well since she (TBA) had handled such cases before. However, things didn't go as planned; the legs and the rest of body come out but the head remains stuck [Yes, the child was positioned to come out feet first]. As we know, under normal circumstances, the head paves the way for the rest of the body.

The TBA tries to extract the head from the womb [or is it vagina] using various methods but these fail and she gives up. The young woman is rushed to hospital with her baby's legs and body partially hanging out. On arrival at the hospital, the baby didn't survive that journey. An operation is made on the young woman and she gones in a comma because of the loss of blood [there were definitely infections picked from the fiddling by the TBA].

Unfortunately, that is how she left this world. My question is why is it that we try to cut corners even in things that concern life and death; I assume that they went to the TBA because it would be cheaper compared to hospital. But by the fact that they were able to get to hospital, it means that it is within reachable distance. Also, why don't we became more altruistic and less self-centred and less money-minded, the TBA should have "swallowed her pride" and referred the young woman to hospital when she noticed the breech position. Even the people who were with the young woman should have decided to take her to hospital at that point.

But I know how it is in Ug when you have a know-it-all medical person (qualified or quack), his or her word is it [no second opinion...so many have been duped like that even the so-called educated and more exposed elite....many needless deaths at the hands of these people]

That is how things are.....

There are other deaths also but not of this type: some of my colleagues lost people dear to them (one, a mother and another, a husband). Rest in eternal peace all those who have passed on and sympathy to the bereaved.