Exactly 7years ago today in 2010, I was travelling to the jungle on a hunting expedition in Sissala East, Upper West Region. Upon reaching a village called Vamboi near Wellembelle, about 30km from Tumu the District Capital, a large crowd had gathered on the compound of a particular house whilst few of them jumped into the road to stop me. I pulled over. An elderly woman run to me and spoke in Sissali. I understood her alright but asked her to speak to me in twi since my sissali wasn't good. She narrated the ordeal a young woman who had been in labour overnight was going through and how she might die if I refused to transport her to Tumu District Hospital. They had tried fruitlessly for hours without delivery, she had complications and there was no ambulance and no vehicle to transport her to Tumu District Hospital for medical attention. She begged me to save the lives of this woman and her unborn baby.
I couldn't turn down the request apparently so I agreed to use my private car as an ambulance. My pickup takes only four passengers. The driver, front seat passenger and two small seats for children. The Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) climbed first and fixed herself into one of the small seats behind me whilst the lady in labour was carried by a group of men and rested her into the passenger's seat. I turned back towards Tumu but with very litte hope of survival considering the condition of the woman in labour. I was full of my usual Presbyterian prayer.
The Wellembelle - Tumu road was seriously bad and still is up to date. I couldn't drive beyond 30km/hour at any given time, there was atleast a pothole within each square metre and couldn't jump the numerous potholes becaue I was carefully considering the safety of this lady and her unborn child as she kept crying and wailing with the last energy left in her. I had to avoid an accident or vehicle breakdown, yet I needed to hurry to save a life. She had been in labour from about 3am to 09:00am without a professional midwife nor a means of transport. The potholes added much to her pain whilst the TBA kept encouraging her to fight for survival. For me, my prayer to God were (1) No vehicle breakdown as my car was very old, a 1992 model, Nissan Pickup, Z24 and (2) safe arrival to Tumu Hospital.
At about 5km to Tumu township, just after Sakai, another old but beautiful village, the lady in labour cried out loudly and out was the head of the baby!. The TBA asked me to use my right hand to hold the pad of clothes to support the head of the baby whilst she, TBA did the rest. It was a bouncy baby boy, he arrived in my car and cried to tell the whole world how he had suffered from 3am to about 09:30am struggling to survive his first minutes in Vamboi, a deprived community in a country called Ghana in West Africa, where there are no nurses, no clinic/hospital and no ambulance!.
What a wow!. What an experience!! I thanked God for not giving me a corpse but a living being. I drove straight to the Maternity Ward of the Tumu District Hospital where a senior midwife came to complete the process in my car. They have both survived. There were journalists from the local Radio Station in Tumu (RADFORD FM) waiting for the story. I remember Hon. Ridwan Abass, now MP for Sissala East (who was by then a radio presenter), Balu Mohammed and others. These were interesting times. The rest is history. The picture you see was the ambulance and its still road worthy according to the DVLA. Maybe God is preserving it for a purpose.
#Let us save them now. #Save our women. #Save our babies
By: Nana Appiah
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