Professor Titus K. Beyuo, the NDC Parliamentary candidate for the Lambussie Constituency on Wednesday used his medical skills to prevent what would have been another statistic of maternal mortality and newborn death in the constituency.
While on a political tour in Bognuo in the Koro Electoral Area of the Lambussie District in the Upper West Region to interact with the chiefs and youth leaders, the attention of the erudite medical professor was drawn to a woman who had suddenly given birth to a male child at home, but the placenta could not be fully delivered for about two hours (retained placenta).
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency after the incident, Prof Beyuo said: “Recognising the medical emergency and looming danger, I suspended the political activity and rushed on a motorbike to the home of the parturient.”
“On reaching there, I saw the young lady lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor with part of the placenta attached to the baby”.
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He said he had to use plastic bags as gloves and performed a manoeuvre to deliver the placenta to separate the baby from his mother and stop the mother from bleeding further.
He then prescribed antibiotics and pleaded with the family to send the mother and baby for medical assessment at the nearest facility with a midwife or medical doctor.
The Bognuo Community lies to the north of the district capital, Lambussie, and though the community has a Community Health Planning Service (CHPS) compound, it has no maternity unit.
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Women therefore need to travel long distances for delivery and to access other maternal services, Prof. Beyuo said, and that the community had met a day before the incident to initiate a self-help project to construct a maternity ward.
But for his timely intervention of deploring his medical skills at the risk of his health since there were no medical gloves, the situation would have become a statistic of maternal and newborn mortality.
He appealed to individuals and corporate entities to support the noble initiative of constructing a maternity unit at the CHPS compound.
Prof Beyuo said any volunteer could contact him or the Lambussie District Director of Health to offer whatever assistance for “this self-help project to become a reality.”
“The maternity unit, when completed, will help avert such medical emergencies in the future,” he noted.
