North West, South West Regions: Access to healthcare in a context of insecurity, armed conflict .

DWB team administrating first aid treatment to victims at Bang-a Bakundu local population (File Photo)



Tears of happiness welled down the eyes of Bih Solange* [real name changed for professional reasons] when the nurse placed her newborn in her arms on a bright morning in 2023.

Bih gazed lovingly at her healthy baby girl. The young mother could not imagine that will be the last time she was cradling and seeing her daughter.

The excitement of nine months of anticipation was short-lived as the joy of the birth soon turned to sorrow.

Few minutes after giving birth, Bih developed severe complications and started bleeding.

Bih was rushed to Esu, a village in Menchum Division of the North West Region, but due to the lack of expertise, the patient was referred to the Wum District Hospital. This made an already complicated situation worse. 

“The day she was referred to the hospital was a Monday. People could not move around since Monday has been declared a ‘ghost town day’,” a family source who pleaded for anonymity told The Guardian Post.  

Travelling to Wum was not only a daunting task but a “suicide mission”.

Although the stretch leading to the hospital is usually littered by separatist fighters, the family was determined to save Bih’s life. 

Their faint hopes were crushed when they were caught up in a crossfire between the separatist fighters and the military around Weh village, a few kilometers to Wum.

“The military had opened fire on the separatist fighters who had mounted barricades to prevent people from moving around,” another family source narrated.

The exchange of gunshots between the two camps lasted several hours. Bih continued bleeding and her family remained trapped on the lonely road begging for help.

Due to the delay, caused by the fear of being killed by a stray bullet, Bih, a lady in her late 20s, bled to death., Bih’s mother, Nai Sei, watched in agony as her daughter succumbed to preventable bleeding complications.

The young mother, who had just brought new life into the world, saw hers cruelly cut short. The family was left shattered. The community was also traumatized by the loss, exacerbating the emotional toll of the ongoing conflict.

 

A daily struggle for healthcare

Stories like that of Bih are not in isolation. Across the restive North West and South West Regions, most families have a similar tale to tell.  

Eight years into the armed conflict with security forces battling separatist fighters, several families continue to feel the brunt.

In late 2016, lawyers and teachers in the North West and South West Regions organised peaceful protests complaining of political and economic marginalization by the government. The situation was soon hijacked and spiraled into violence.

According to a 2024 report of the international rights group, Human Rights Watch, at least 6,000 persons have been killed by both government forces and armed separatist in the conflict.

The Human Right Watch report also added that over 630,000 civilians have been forcefully displaced and 2.2 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

For eight years, there has been a daily struggle for the population to have access to healthcare in some parts of the two Anglophone regions.

The population, especially those living in rural settings, has experienced reduced access to healthcare since the crisis erupted. 

Like Bih, Sah Timothy was also a victim. He was in his village when his condition deteriorated. That forced his family to carry him to the Benakuma hospital on a bike.

But when they got to Benade village, near Beakuma, ‘amba boys’ stopped them from going. The separatist fighters said they received firm instructions that no one should walk around on a ghost town day.

“The was no way to take him to the hospital. They were asked to go back and travel the next day. When they took him back home he died later. If he had been allowed to go to the hospital, he would have survived,” a close family relative, who refused to be named narrated.

There are also stories of people unable to go to the hospital and even pharmacies due to lockdowns imposed by separatist fighters. They are sometimes forced to remain indoors for close to three weeks.

“We are tired. Imagine you fall sick during the lockdown. What do you do? You are forced to stay at home and wait. You could be killed if you step out,” a Bamenda city dweller, whose only name we got as Nancy lamented.

Nancy added that the lack of equipment, reduced supply of services, limited staff and lack of fee-for-service remain the main barrier to healthcare.

But according to recent statistics to the North West Regional Delegation of Public Health, there are about 426 operational health facilities in the region.

A source at the regional delegation told The Guardian Post, that: “All health facilities are functional. But at a given moment that we had those who closed, some were looted but with time, all facilities are functional now”.

Although most of these facilities are said to be operational, some inhabitants say the crisis has severely impacted the healthcare system in some communities.

This, they said, has led to a conundrum that has affected the lives of millions of people.

 

Attacks on healthcare

According to the then Humanitarian Coordinator at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, Matthias Naab, the crisis in the North West and South West Regions has seen a large number of attacks on healthcare.

Naab, in a release in February 2022, said health workers, patients had been threatened and killed. Then, Naab also talked of the destruction of medical infrastructure.

In December 2020, the government suspended activities of international health charity organisation, Doctors Without Borders, DWB, in the North West. Authorities then accused the organization of being too close to separatist fighters.

In December 2021, Doctors Without Borders suspended its medical and humanitarian activities in the South West Region due to the unjust detention of four staff members. The move left tens of thousands of people without access to vital health care.

In 2021, Human Rights Watch reported that armed separatists kidnaped a medical doctor in Bali, in the North West Region and threatened to kill him before releasing him the same day after a ransom was paid.

On February 4, 2021, a nurse working with a Non-Governmental Organisation, NGO, was shot and injured as an ambulance in which she was, was caught in military-separatist fighters crossfire. This was during a separatist attack on Mbalangi village in the South West Region.

Also, on July 25 of the same year, fighters of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, ADF, stopped a humanitarian vehicle in Guzang in the North West Region, kidnapped the four staff members, beat one and released them the following day.

On February 26, 2022, presumed armed men stopped a medical convoy of two vehicles from the Cameroon Baptist Convention, CBC returning to Bamenda.

In a statement then, the OCHA Humanitarian Coordinator, in Cameroon, Matthias Naab, had said “gunshots fired on one of the vehicles caused fatal wounds to the nurse, who was rushed to the hospital and later deceased”.

The team, which included 18 people, was returning from delivering healthcare services to people in need in Ashong and Nyonga localities in the North West Region.

 

A “dire” situation

A freelance journalist based in Wum, Stephen Ojang, told The Guardian Post that the situation of access to healthcare in some parts of Menchum Division is “dire”.

According to Ojang, access to healthcare is severely limited in the division due to the ongoing conflict.

Ojang insisted that although no healthcare facilities were damaged or destroyed, some operate at reduced capacity, leaving civilians vulnerable.

“No hospitals have closed their doors nor suspended their services. We however have partially functional hospitals in Weh, Bu, Upkwa, Befang, and Benakuma because of limited health personnel,” Ojang said.

Ojang believes that the crisis has “worsened the fragile health system”.

Ojang said he is worried over the future of healthcare in the Region. He said the conflict has “displaced healthcare workers, reduced medical supply chains, increased disease transmission and mortality rates and limited access to essential healthcare services”. 

 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3283 of Thursday November 07, 2024

 

 

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