A blood bag is hung on a wall, its contents trickling through an intravenous line into Sadiya Ibrahim’s right arm as she lay almost lifeless on a raffia mat. The pregnant woman occasionally raises her frail hand to swat flies around her face. All the time, she fails.
For three days in March, excruciating pains around her stomach and waist rendered her helpless at her home at Garin Liman, a village in Batsari Local Government Area (LGA) of Katsina State. However, no commercial vehicles or motorcycles plied the road to the primary healthcare centre (PHC) in Batsari, more than 10 kilometres away.
Eventually, her sister, Dudua, and other concerned relatives settled for a cart. They took turns pushing the two-wheeled ‘vehicle’ for several kilometres before arriving at Dantsuntsu, another village in Batsari. They laid her on a mat in an empty room beside a pharmacy where residents from neighbouring villages visit for urgent and minor health-related problems. A health worker recommends and sells drugs to the villagers at the pharmacy. In rare cases, he treats people like Mrs Ibrahim, a resident who identified as Kasim told PREMIUM TIMES.
