PUNCH
If it were not for the timely intervention of the elderly Islamic cleric at Kizara Village in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State, Garba Umar would have ended his 15-year-old marriage to his wife, Halima.
Her offence was allowing a male doctor attend to her in the labour room.
Saturday PUNCH learnt that when efforts by other women in the compound failed to help when she went into labour, she was rushed to the Tsafe General Hospital following noticeable complications that often accompany childbirth.
On getting to the hospital, there were no female doctors or nurses on the ground to attend to her. Thus, they were constrained to allow a male doctor on duty attend to her, at which time her health seemed to be failing.
Reluctant to embrace the option, the women said they had no choice but to allow the doctor (names withheld for security reasons) attend to her.
After three days of being in a coma, Halima survived, but she lost the baby. However, her family and friends were consoled that she made it out alive.
But unknown to the distraught mother, the consequences of allowing a male doctor attend to her awaited her at home. Her husband, it was learnt, had become livid, hurled insults at her and even threatened a divorce for allowing a male doctor to attend to her.
Those privy to the drama said Halima was on her way out of the marriage, but for the swift intervention of the cleric, who counselled and cautioned her husband against such a move.
“The cleric told him it wasn’t prohibitive in Islam for a male doctor to attend to a female patient in the absence of female medical personnel,” one of the witnesses told Saturday PUNCH.
Sadly, such an experience is not new, neither is it exclusive to Halima.
The same fate befell Hafsat, a resident of Talata Mafara in Zamfara State, in which case her husband warned that on no account should she seek medical attention from a male doctor in his absence, no matter the gravity of the ailment.Thent.The vicissitudes of life would, however, compel Hafsat to flout the instruction. Like Hafisat, she was delivered of a baby girl by a male doctor when the husband was unavailable. It took the intervention of family and friends that the marriage didn’t end in a divorce.
Double loss for Mukhtar
Unlike Halima and Hafsat, who were both lucky to have their marriages intact despite flouting the ‘golden rule’ set by their husbands, a 14-year-old mother in Zango Local Government Area of Katsina State, Aminat Mukhtar, wasn’t as lucky. Hers ended in a divorce despite aborting her education because of the marriage.
