The 7.5 km road at Lekma that kills pregnancies

Eugenia is 8-months pregnant but her great worry is not labour. It is having to use the Teshie road to the LEKMA hospital for ante-natal care.

And while she is planning her baby’s birth, she has already laid her plans of how to get to the hospital when labour pain strikes.

She will still walk. She will set off early. But yes, she will still walk.

This 7.5km road remains the single most distressful lack within the Teshie communities ranked the eighth largest metropolitan center in Ghana. 

This road connects Teshie Lascala, Aglizaa and Manet estate through to Spintex.

Drivers leave dusty billows to buffet pedestrians while their passengers must deal with disjointing, discomfiting bumps from potholes.

At the end of the day, all the players in the above sentence are worse off.

Pedestrians are getting infections and together with passengers, they are all reporting to the hospital with respiratory infections while drivers are reporting their cars to garages.

Medical folders of patients at the LEKMA hospital look like archeological finds. They are covered with dust.

Medical equipment which is dust-sensitive are breaking down.  Oxygen plant, CT Scan machine, analysers have all broken down much quicker than expected.

Food vendors need extra layers of hygienic cover over their foods. But even this is futile in the billows.  A senior citizen who has had a surgical operation told myjoyonline.com editor, Malik Daabu, he dreads using the road whenever he has to go back to the hospital for treatment.

He said it “is very difficult because the wound is just around my manhood and groin. And because the road is bumpy I go through a lot of pain before coming here.”

Government after much pressure from residents announced in June 2018, construction work will resume on that road the same month. It has been a year.

MP for Ledzokuku, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye cuts a frustrated figure when the Teshie road becomes a matter of discussion. He has lamented, his advocacy to get the road fixed takes up 50% of his constituency work.

Photo credit; Daily Graphic: Dr. Okoe Boye (right), MP for Ledzokuku, interacting with Mr. Kwesi Amoako-Atta when the minister inspected the Teshie Link road.

The doctor knows of how pregnant women have suffered on that stretch of the road. Hospital administrators have complained for years about miscarriages which are linked to the bumpy ride on the roads.

Eugenia who has lived in Teshie for the past six years knows a lot about stories of failed pregnancies of some women who use this road. She says, she won’t take that risk.

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