Shakitat Yakubu is 33 years old. She is a resident of Agboyi, a community in the Agboyi-Ketu Local Council Development Area (LCDA) in Kosofe Local Government of Lagos State.
 
Yakubu, a mother of three, is expecting her fourth child as she is eight months pregnant. But rather than attend one of the numerous Primary Health Care (PHC) Centres that dot the area for her antenatal, Yakubu patronises Mama Nurat, one of the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the community.
 

Although family planning commodities are free in Lagos, lack of consumables and poor state of family planning clinics at the Primary Health Care (PHCs) remains a major hurdle to accessing the services at the PHC level.

A visit to some of the Lagos PHCs reveals that many of the facilities lack consumables for modern contraceptive procedure, some have no dedicated FP room to ensure privacy for users, they operate with old or incomplete equipment and others can’t offer implant due to lack of trained personnel or equipment.

UNIVERSALLY, the Primary Health Care, PHC,  is a form of essential service that is based on scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology to make health care accessible to all individuals and families in a community.

Although considered the  cornerstone of universal health systems, PHCs have often been neglected in terms of funding and other areas of operations in many states across the nation. The long neglect of this level of care has in turn brought grief on the secondary and tertiary facilities.

By Franka Osakwe

Igbologun is one of the riverine communities in Amowo-Odofin Local Government Area, Lagos, where pregnant women and children pay stiff price to stay alive, although maternal services are free in Lagos State.

This island community also known as Snake Island, with over twenty thousand people, largely child bearing women and children, has only one poorly functioning Primary Health Centre (PHC), which is not patronized for maternal services.