TOYIN ADEBAYO, Abuja
Gbaupe community is under Kuje Area Council, is one out of many Abuja’s communities lacking basic amenities of life such as hospital, good road, potable water, electricity, and communication networks.
The community is about five kilometers from the Aco Estate, along the Airport Road despite its nearness to the city, it can only boost of a clinic donated by the US Embassy last July.
However, the gesture of the US Embassy to put smile to the faces of pregnant women in the community proved abortive has health personnel posted to the facilities are hardly seen at their duty post.
This singular act has made many pregnant woman to seek help in other medical facilities such as Lugbe and other health facilities in town to assess antenatal, delivery and postnatal care and many results to home delivery with the help of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) .
A source close to the Chief of the community said the Cottage Hospital can take about six deliveries at once, but Nurses and other medical staff are not always on their duty post , many a times when a woman in labour visit the hospital to be delivered of her baby, the place is under lock and key.
Sometimes, when they come, they resume work whenever they like and closes latest by 1pm. To confirm this allegations, our correspondent visited the facility on a working day and it was lock by 12 noon.
Danjuma Gejere, Chief of Gbaupe Community highlighted some of the challenges women, children and men goes through on daily basis.
According to him ,“There are numerous challenges in the community of about 15,000 population namely: light, road, water, communication network and health facilities”.
He lamented that, People are dying in this community because we don’t have clinic and potable water. Men are even dying as a result of lack of these amenities. Before we take some of our pregnant women to Lugbe, they are already dead.
The Community Head said, “We have one clinic here, but it can’t serve the whole of the community. We do go to Lugbe and other clinics inside town. Now, we have another challenge, which is water. If you see any borehole here, it is owned by private individuals, not government. I have pleaded with government; they are not listening to me. I begged for clinic, government failed to consider me. It was one organization that came and built the small clinic in the community for us.”
According to him, Many women and children have breathed their last on the bad road linking the village to Aco Estate, located along the Airport Road, in a bid to save their lives at nearby hospitals when they are sick.
He also noted that, residents climb to the top of hills before they could communicate with people outside the village via their telephones.
The Chief also decried the attitudes of politicians to his community ,saying, whenever there was an election, the community would get promises from prospective aspirants seeking elective position and that they never get anything after elections.
He stressed, pointing to electricity poles and cables standing on every street of Gbaupe, it is just a make believe there has not been light in the town for years.
He added that, a river which had been the only source of water for his forefathers had been polluted by human faeces and other wastes due to the practice of open defecation.
One of the pregnant woman in Gbaupe, Mrs Victoria Adams (28) said she is always afraid whenever she is pregnant because of the plight pregnant women pass through . We live in perpetual fear until God deliver us of our babies and we are alive to testify.
According to her, she has seen women die from pregnancy and childbirth complications and a particular one was a close friend this makes me sad and frighten whenever am pregnant because there is no good hospital, no road, no water, no light and there is no means of communication, despite the fact that we are not far from the city.
Adams said, we need government intervention in these areas fast to alleviate the suffering of pregnant women and the community as a whole.
Similarly, Fausat Haruna a nursing mother narrated her ordeal how she narrowly escaped death while she was about to be delivered of her last baby. ” it was some minutes past twelve when my labour started, we don’t have a car to take me to the hospital where I registered for antenatal in Lugbe, my husband rushed to the cottage hospital donated by the US Embassy, it was locked, my husband was confused on what next to do, he went to wake one of our neighbours who own a motorcycle, he was the one that carried me to the hospital that night on a bad road, no sooner that I got to the hospital I delivered my baby.” It was a nasty experience. 
 Also, Aisah Subaru, one of the Traditional Birth Attendants said some year’s back they make brisk business from taken deliveries at home but today, most women are now enlightened, they prefare to deliver at the hospital.
She said business is so bad now, “I heard they are training the TBAs on the act of skilled delivery , I will be glad to learn new ways of taking delivery so that I can bounce back”, she said.
