•Decries loss at Lagos High Court

By Sola Ogundipe

THE Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, WARDC, has won the case of Mary Sunday vs FGN at the ECOWAS court with N50 million awarded in her favour for reparation for all prejudices and discrimination suffered by her as a result of the breach of her right to fair hearing by the Federal Government.

Mary’s male partner poured hot soup on her body as a result of which she was disfigured beyond recognition.  The court, however, failed to affirm the gender- based violence suffered by her.

However, in Lagos, WARDC lost the case of Oduyoye vs LUTH &AG at the Federal High Court. The matter involved a woman who died at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, after giving birth while being held due to refusal by the hospital to discharge her because of her inability to pay N1.3 million.   The court struck out the matter for reasons of technicality.

“This is travesty of Justice for Folake’s family. Folake was denied emergency care when she needed it most and left to die for her inability to clear medical bills despite efforts by her family to raise part of the money, ” said Executive Director of WARDC, Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi.

“This is a blow to Nigerian women who seek maternal health services at both private and public health facilities and are faced with this kind of treatment. It is the duty of government to ensure that Nigerian women and girls have access to quality and affordable reproductive healthcare services.”

According to Akiyode-Afolabi: “We will re-institute the matter,   unfortunately, the court arrived at the decision three years after   a lot of rigorous objections and counter- applications with decisions in our favour. So we’re shocked with the development. Similar incident happened in Kenya after this and the court was magnanimous to order that the detention was illegal, and was discrimination against women and their reproductive rights and that the government should ban user fees in the hospital and awarded damages.

Nigeria has the highest number of maternal deaths in the world, with more than 58,000 women dying from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth each year, according to the World Health Organisation statistics, yet, most of these deaths and health consequences are preventable.

The right to health is guaranteed in the African Charter which has been domesticated in Nigeria and necessitates that the Nigerian Government and judiciary take positive action to safeguard its citizens’ health.