CSNewspaper Freelance Reporter, Seye Joseph, writes on the deplorable condition of the Ohunbe Health Centre and the pitiful conditions pregnant women go through before child delivery in a local government in Ogun state.
Ohunbe Primacy Health Center was an answer to the prayers of thousands of women in the 21 communities of Ketu Local Government, who would benefit from the affordable and quality healthcare the PHC promised when it was established in 1976.
However, as the years roll by, rot set in. The dream of affordable and quality health care dimmed. Now it is a mirage. I arrived at the facility under the scorching sun to meet the entrance door locked.
At establishment, the primary focus was to provide essential medical care for mother and child before, during and after delivery, give adequate health education on family planning to the people, prevent and control local endemic diseases in Ohunbe Community and other 21 communities of Ketu Local Council Development Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. But these services were only provided few years when the health centre started. Its pathetic state now has left many women in area to seek medical attention in the neighbouring country of Republic of Benin where they are given birth certificates of the country after giving birth.
My journey started from Lagos with the sole aim of ascertaining the status of the Primary Health Care [PHC] in respect of ante natal, child delivery and postnatal services for pregnant women in Ohunbe Community of Ketu Local Council Development Area of Ogun State, Nigeria.
The journey from Lagos to Ohunbe is a distance of 102 kilometres that should ordinarily take less than four hours by road, took more hours because of the appalling conditions of the roads. The community is a village that comprises peasant farmers, petty traders with many others co-villages sharing border with the neighbouring country, Republic of Benin.
A tale of neglect
There is no any other way to define the pathetic state of the health center than its pitiful state of its neglect, pains and abandonment. The health facility that had been under lock and key for over nine months before it was reopened in June 2017 was locked up with a big padlock when I got there on that scorching Sunday afternoon, first indication that all was not well with the health facility.
“So what happen if there is emergency in the village and there is need to attend to any patient”, I asked myself without expecting to be answered by anyone.
Pa Amos Olaleye’s, an 86-year old man, one of the oldest men in the community provided what seemed like an answer.
“So what will happen after you have known the state of the health center?” he asked. “After knowing the state of the health center, it will be reported in the newspaper and we will hope for government to help rebuild the center”, I replied him.
Pa Amos told me of how the health centre was built for the community in 1976 and how a baby girl was the first baby born in the centre.
According to Pa Amos, the centre was being run effectively in 1976 with patients coming from different communities for child delivery, until the years of neglect.
He said that the health facility was abandoned by the authority and it has dilapidated to the extent that the communities no longer patronise the facility anymore but rather seek antenatal and child delivery services at clinics owned by individuals in the Republic of Benin. The clinics, therefore, issued birth certificates that have the seal of the government of the Federal Republic of Benin to babies born by Nigerian mothers.
“Our wives in this community and other 21 communities are visiting Republic of Benin because our government has stopped bringing medicine to the centre. There is nowhere to take care of our children. We depend on the Republic of Benin”, he lamented.
He further lamented that the moribund health facility which was meant to provide services to other twenty villages in the area has one nursing staff and a volunteer health worker who has not been paid in the last two years.
The villages that should benefit from the now dilapidated PHC, according to Pa Amos, are “Igbeme, Itakasi, Kobejo, Kobejo I, Kobejo II, Kobejo III, Abikanlu, Gbokoto and Pedepo.
Others are “Abule Idi, Obelle, Ibayun, Sawmill, Opata, Iyameta, Asa, Mosan, Alabata, Abepe and Igbodo”.
The octogenarian said that the present status of the PHC, which was reopened in June 2017 hardly have patients because most of them don’t know what it means to use the health center than to go to the Republic of Benin to receive health services even in their worst clinics.
“The workers do not live here. They live in another local council that is very far from here. They go away on Friday after the close of work and come back on Sunday evening or Monday morning. So, if a patient goes to the clinic at weekend, the place will be empty”, Amos said.
Why villagers neglect health centre
I returned to Ohunbe a week later on a Sunday afternoon to visit the pregnant women and village heads in the twenty other villages meant to be using the health facility but never bordered to use it due to its long distance and state of its abandonment.
My fixer (guide), Sunday, is also one of the motorcyclists in Ohunbe. He told me he has a mini private elementary school as a proprietor in Ohunbe. He is a motorcyclist by choice which is to make side money during the holidays.
Ibayun was the first village Sunday led me to where we met Chief Jimoh Atere, who is the village head. His wife, Deborah, was pregnant. She explained how she has been taken care of herself during pregnancy in the absence of the PHC.
Deborah said that she has not visited Ohunbe community health centre, though, it is closer to Ibayun village. The reason adduced by Deborah was that the centre has been closed and no health workers attend to the patients.
So, how did Deborah get antenatal care? From a nearby private health centre, she answered.
Her husband, Chief Atere complained about the dilapidated state of the village health centre. “Our people here don’t visit the health centre because of its pathetic state and the reason why they don’t go there is because government is not paying attention to the centre.”
Simon Oladobe, Chief Atere’s friend, who was listening all the while volunteered to take me to his own village, Abule Idi. My fixer and I rode a motorbike to the village while he led us on his own private motorcycle.
The journey from Ibayun village to Abule Idi was not a twinkling of an eye distance, as it took many minutes following Oladobe to his village. There was no building or human beings in the vicinity. It was deserted except for trees. I asked Simon if we were on track. He answered with assuring yes.
Finally, we got to Abule Idi. The village head had gone to the farm. His wife reported.
At Simon’s home, he introduced me to his wife and other children, all living in a near dilapidated mud house. No school. No water. No health centre. No electricity. Simon lamented over what the villagers endure before having childbirth.
“Our people for a long time don’t go to the health centre in Ohunbe for anything. It’s easier for us to go to Pobe in Republic of Benin where they give us medicine and good health care services,” he said.
He told me that his three children were not born in Nigeria since the birth certificates were issued by the government of the Republic of Benin. “But the certificates had French language”, he added. He asked his wife to fetch the birth certificates. She did. Since I do not speak French, I could not understand the writing.
From Abule Idi, we journeyed to Pedepo and Gbokoto searching for pregnant women to tell their own stories and corroborate the story of health care neglect, pain and lamentations.
Chief Lana Ogundipe, village head of Obele. Obele is the last village on the verge of the border between Nigeria and Republic of Benin. Chief Ogundipe opened up that the women of Obele had completely abandoned Ohunbe health centre because of the abandon state of the centre.
“We used to attend Ohunbe before, but we do not go there anymore because of its pathetic condition. The health centre in Ohunbe is dead. Women in Obele now go to Republic of Benin for child labour,” he said.
He lamented the absence of basic amenities such as electricity, water, road and healthcare for the pregnant women “who have to travel by motorcycle to give birth in the Republic of Benin”.
“The politicians see us as villagers in the Republic of Benin. That is why they don’t care to give us amenities here. But when it is election period they will remember that we are Nigerians. There is nothing happening here”, Ogunlana cried out
He later led me behind a building that served as his palace where the foundation of a health centre was laid by the former Military Administration of Ogun State, Daniel Akintonde who promised to build it from 1993 to 1999, but now the foundation is covered by weeds.
In one day, my fixer and I visited 13 villages and returned to Ohunbe at 5 pm. The next day, at Igbemi village, we met Alhaji Sanni Yekini, the community head. Igbeme is on the list of the beneficiaries of the primary health center.
Yekini explained that women in his village have stopped visiting Ohunbe health centre because the facility was in the state of utter neglect.
“As Nigerians, we are unhappy to give birth to our children in the Republic of Benin. My son cannot be proud of being born in Benin Republic. As a Nigerian, why should I give birth to my children in Republic of Benin?” Yekini asked rhetorically.
“We lack basic amenities here. It is during the elections that they will know that we exist and after getting what they need, they will disappear.
“During the elections, I gathered all my chiefs to orientate people on what to do to have their voters cards and vote for their choice candidates because I have 11 communities under me”, he said.
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