IPOKIA HEALTH CLINIC: ONE BED HOSPITAL THAT SERVE OVER 10,000 PEOPLE IN OGUN STATE

Established over 30 years ago, the Ipokia Local Government Health Clinic, Iropo, today betrays any semblance of a life-saving medical facility. Manned by only two members of staff – a young nurse and a middle-aged doctor, the hospital apart from lacking basic items required to deliver quality healthcare to the hundreds of low-income-earning residents who throng it every month for solution, does not have enough drugs to treat minor cases like malaria and typhoid – the two most prevalent ailments in the area.

To make matters worse, the hospital boasts of only one bed to treat a population size of over 10, 000 people – young and old – who rely on it for their medical needs. The facility does not have a toilet and bathroom, forcing patients who visit to defecate in polythene bags and bathe in the open, under a tree behind the hospital. Newly nursing mothers who wish to be cleaned by the hospital staff must have a relation to go in search of water as the facility does not have a functional tap.

 The only well providing water for the hospital has since run dry and has been converted to a dump where feaces of patients who defecate in polythene bags are littered. On occasions where there are so many newly delivered mothers around, each is allowed to rest on the hospital’s only bed for a few minutes before giving way to another woman and her baby. At times, when the entire place is ‘jam-packed’, the women are sent back home to take care of themselves almost immediately after they had been delivered of their babies. For patients who visit this hospital and the two staff on ground to attend to their needs, it is a helpless situation – one whose elastic can stretch no further.

“Attending to the hundreds of patients who visit this place from over five communities and several settlements in this local government has been very stressful,” the nurse at the hospital, Hannah Oke, confessed. “Sometimes when there are so many cases for us to handle especially women on the verge of delivery, we advise them to go to other hospitals outside the locality. In fact, as a result of this situation, many women now give birth at home.

“Apart from shortage of staff and lack of basic infrastructure like toilet, bathroom and water, electricity is also another major problem we face here. If a woman is to be delivered of a baby in the night, we rely only on torch to attend to her as the hospital does not have a generator of its own.

“We are pleading with government to quickly intervene in our situation so that we can provide the people of this area with good health care and save many lives in the process,” she said.

 “It is quite tough charging our phone batteries in this environment as there is no electricity supply. So most times we gather our phones and give to one of us who go to charge them for us at Ifonyintedo.

“Our community primary school is in a terrible state. We have only two teachers teaching about 400 pupils. How can any child learn something meaningful under such atmosphere? So, as a community we had to organise one extra teacher whom we pay N10, 000 every month to support the education of our children.

“However, contributing the money to pay the teacher every month has not been easy considering the fact that many households are just managing to get by especially now that the bad state of our roads is greatly affecting the price of our farm produce. The bad state of the roads in the town is not making the transportation of our harvest to the market possible, so those who manage to come and buy from us do so at a very lower price. It is a very big problem for us,” he said.

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