DELIVERY OF TWINS & MILTIPLE BIRTH NOW FREE IN AE-FETHA EBONYI
Reporter : AMECHI ODO
Until September 1876 when a famous Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor, arrived in Creek Town of Calabar and subsequently Igboland, giving birth to twins was considered a taboo and often resulted in their death. Today, the campaign for their survival has taken a different dimension with health institutions, including Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (AE-FETHA) saying that medical bills of twins, triplets and quadruplets delivered in its facility will be free of charge henceforth.
About one hundred and forty-four years after Mary Slessor vigorously fought against the killing of twins in Igbo land, it is still common to hear that a father abandoned his twin babies, triplets and quadruplets delivered in a hospital due to lack of money to pay for their medical bills and post natal care.
To address the ill treatment against such babies, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital Abakaliki activated its humanitarian policy on free medical bills for twins, triplets and quadruplets.
The Chairman Medical Advisory Committee (C-MAC) of the Hospital, Dr. Richard Ewa, while discharging four set of twins at one of its facilities in Abakaliki in line with the policy, explained that it was aimed at encouraging more mothers to deliver multiple births in standard health facilities.
A consultant paediatrician in the Newborn Special Care Unit in the hospital, Dr. Daniyon Olapeju, noted that the delivery of twins and other multiple births in the facility was not limited to any medical service as some of the mothers were delivered of their babies through caesarean section.
Some of the discharged mothers commended the Federal Teaching Hospital for the kind gesture, pointing out that it was their own dividend of democracy.
It was observed that none of the fathers of the discharged sets of twins was present at the hospital perhaps they were out to look for money to clear the medical bills not knowing that Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital had shouldered the responsibility.