Respect for Autonomy: Women do not have the right to access healthcare services in the absence of their husband. DO YOU AGREE?

 I found it very fascinating when I visited some of the primary care facilities in Kano State Nigeria to see how the members of the communities were very involved in supporting women and children in the communities to access healthcare services. This partnership should be encourage to help in our intervention in reducing the maternal mortality in line with the SDG goals in the country.

I had firsthand experience as I interviewed some of the members of the community who shared various experiences on how they have supported women in emergency situation to access healthcare services- Most touching for me is that in some cases, they use their personal fund to assist these women in their community.

Just to highlight few of their interventions;

One of them narrated how many pregnant women in his community do not like to visit the government health facility but due to interventions from different implementing partners who built their capacity on quality of care, the team came together and started providing orientation to the women and their husbands in the community.  They sensitize the men to always allow their women to come to the health facility. They encourage the husband to allow the wives to utilize the government facilities and through these effort- they recorded an increase in the number of women who visit the government health facilities for Antennal services and delivery. In the past, they narrated that most pregnant women find it absurd to attend hospital, they mostly delivery their babies in their homes.

They also narrated how they intervened in the case of a woman who was pregnant and was in labour but could not go to the primary health care (PHC) facility because the husband was not around as it unacceptable for women to do so in their community. When the woman was in labour and the community gate keeper was contacted -he went to intervene and ensured that the woman was taken to the PHC. The woman was eventually delivered of one live baby and one still birth because of the prolong labor. The gate keeper reported the matter to their ward head in the community to warn the husbands about his refusal to allow his wife access to healthcare in his absence. The ward head took the matter up and followed up with the husband. On the husband return, he was grateful for their intervention and visited the gate keeper to thank him for the intervention.

These stories mean a lot for me and am sharing so that others can learn and we can all join hands to getter to make our world a better place. 

Let me know what you think.