Pregnant woman carried over river loses baby in stillbirth

The woman in labour who was seen in a viral video being carried on a cane chair to cross a river in order to reach a hospital by a motorbike lost the baby in the womb before she was delivered of it, Starr News has gathered.

It is unclear if the delay in getting her to the hospital contributed to the stillbirth as she had to travel some 20kilometers to reach the nearest health facility.

In the viral video, some young men were seen first crossing a river with a motorbike on their shoulders to an end of the river, and later going for the pregnant woman in a cane chair through the same process to the end where the motorbike was waiting.

The incident, according to Starr News’ Northern regional correspondent, Eliasu Tanko occurred on Tuesday September 12 at a mining community called Nangurma in the Northern region. She was being transported to Yezhisi.

Tanko noted that even though a CHPS compound has been established in the village since 2016, it is yet to be commissioned by the government leading to heavy complications for residents.

Speaking to Morning Starr on the development, the district chief executive of the area Abu Adams said the CHPS compound has been handed over to the Ghana Health Service to operationalise it.

“As a nation, we are developing gradually. We cannot do everything at a go and that is why the CHPS compound is being constructed. A contract has been awarded for the furnishing. Within a month, the CHPS compound should be ready for use. The facility has been completed. All that is left is the furnishing. We constructed a CHPS compound at Nangruma. In 2016, we contracted someone to supply equipment so we can hand the facility over to the GHS,” he told Morning Starr host Francis Abban Friday.

Meanwhile, the Member of Parliament for the constituency Ibrahim Tanko who bemoaned the development blamed it on the decision by the NPP government to suspend all ongoing projects in the area when it assumed power after the 2016 polls.



“I am saddened by this incident. We have some CHPS compounds in the town. The assembly mentioned that some funds were needed to complete the facility. Unfortunately, the funds never came. With this, we can tell that projects that are mostly started by previous administrations are abandoned by new governments and that is not good. I will consider getting the community canoes and boats. I will look for funds to help fix this. I pray the funds will come in immediately”