Ayoung mentally ill orphan named Mercy Saah lives with her widowed grandmother, Bugre Tii, in a lonely mud house in Nabdam, a district in Ghana’s Upper East Region.
Located at Zanlerigu, the house has only one room and it seems likely to collapse in the next rainy season because it is too old and extremely weak.
There is electricity in the hilly community but the room shared by the pair is dark as the house is not connected to any electricity supply. Both of them survive on the food the frail widow grows by herself in a small garden near the house.
The girl has been mentally ill from birth. Every morning, she comes out from that dark room and takes a random walk around the community. She wears bushy hair and at times an underskirt soiled with menstrual blood.
She has no friend in the community except a mentally ill man presumed to be in his late 20s. Her age is listed on her National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) card as twenty-one years, but she looks more youthful than that.
Some believe the age shown on the card may have been recorded incorrectly because her parents, who would have provided her exact date of birth to the NHIA, had died before the card was produced for her.
She and the man are often seen together at various spots in the community. Several months back, health professionals stationed at the Zanlerigu Health Centre found them engaging in a sexual activity inside an uncompleted maternity block that belongs to the health centre.
A nurse grabbed a dormant cane from the ground and went after them with angry steps. On seeing the nurse heading their way with the cane, the two disentangled themselves from each other and made a quick exit from the building in separate ways.
But they came together again a few minutes later, this time inside a roofless washroom close to the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in the area. And the act continued there.
Pregnancy, confession and Caesarean delivery
After a few months, an unemployed middle-aged woman led the girl to the health centre. She introduced herself to the centre as the girl’s aunt and revealed the girl was pregnant.
When the health staff questioned the girl about the pregnancy, she said the mentally ill man they last found with her inside the uncompleted maternity building was responsible for it.
The facility confirmed her pregnancy following a medical examination, provided her with a weighing card and placed her on antenatal care.
In the months that followed, she visited the centre for antenatal care checkups, her aunt accompanying her every time. As her pregnancy developed all through those months and she went about her daily life in the community, more and more people realised she was expecting a child.
On Monday, 18 August 2025, labour pains set in and she was taken to the centre for delivery. She was crying and preventing midwives from performing the necessary vaginal examination.
Her uncooperativeness made it hard for the healthcare team to assess her labour progress. The labour became more complicated as her blood pressure suddenly surged to a dangerously high level.
To avoid further complications, the centre referred her on the same day to the Upper East Regional Hospital, a public facility roughly thirty minutes away from the community by car.
The regional hospital initiated induction (a process that artificially speeds up labour using medications or other means to ensure a safe delivery for the woman and her baby) but it failed.
In the end, a Caesarean section was performed three days later (August 21) to deliver the baby. It was successful. And it was a baby girl.
One poor widow, three mouths to feed
Hearing that both her daughter and her newborn granddaughter were okay after the surgery filled the poor widow with joy inside the dark lonely hut.
But before long, that joy was clouded and consumed by worries about how to secure food for the baby, her daughter and herself.
A poor roadside porridge seller volunteered to visit the house daily to bathe the baby, and she was regular, but suddenly stopped going there after a while. Although she did not cite any reasons for her withdrawal, it was presumed she pulled out because the little financial support she was also giving the family each time she appeared there was eating deep into her little porridge profit purse.
The worries weighed more heavily on the widow’s mind not only because the woman no longer visited the house but also because the girl hardly breastfed the baby.
The girl probably did not feel or understand how she and the baby were connected because she was unconscious when the baby was delivered at the theatre. Nature could have nurtured that bond on its own between the mother and the baby, even in her mental-illness state, had the delivery happened naturally through vaginal birth.
But there is a young woman who is now trying to cultivate that bond. She is Lydia Ayine, a midwife at the Zanlerigu Health Centre.
Her solo efforts started when she personally paid a visit to the family and saw how hard it was for the elderly woman to persuade the girl to breastfeed the baby. She also learnt that the girl had been longing to go out of the house and be her usual self. And she saw a wooden structure the old widow had dragged to the doorway to keep the girl indoors for the baby’s sake.
The midwife left and returned shortly after, carrying some items. The items included food, baby clothing and hygiene essentials. With a voice as calm as a falling snow, the midwife tried to let the girl know she was responsible for the baby and that the infant needed the milk flow from her breasts to grow.
She took the girl through breastfeeding techniques on the first visit and has from that time to this day visited the house regularly to ensure the baby is properly fed. Each time she visits, she also supports the family with her own resources.
Help and support
Less than a month ago, the midwife shared the family’s story with a Bolgatanga resident, Matilda Atia, who relayed the same story to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nabdam, Dr. Mark Kurt Nawaane.
In response, the MP donated baby diapers, bars of soap, a mini bag of laundry powder and Gh¢500 (USD40.98) to the family through a delegation. A few people have lent a helping hand, but the assistance has been insufficient and irregular.
Recently, the girl had repeated epileptic seizures, raising more concerns about the future of the baby. She was unable to breastfeed the baby owing to the severity of the epileptic seizures. Currently, the baby is being given supplementary feeds (NAN 1) because the seizures disrupted breastfeeding.
When the midwife together with a young one-time radio news anchor, Philip Asoba, met with the widow two weeks ago, she appealed for public support and considered foster care a viable option for the baby.
The midwife has approached Nabdam District Assembly and the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development on the family’s behalf. Neither of the two government agencies has come to the aid of the family yet.
Little is known at the Zanlerigu Health Centre about the background of the mentally ill man responsible for the pregnancy and the baby.
A source says the mentally ill man hails from the community and he is hardly seen being aggressive even in his demeanor as he walks around. And to prevent the girl from getting pregnant again, the health centre has put her on contraception.
The old widow knows for sure that her granddaughter will not conceive again, at least for now. But, as the family’s current crisis robs her of sleep, she does not know if help is on the way.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
