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Hidden in the Emirates’ hinterland are several abandoned Primary Healthcare Clinics. Despite spending billions of Naira to build and rehabilitate Primary Healthcare Centres in Kano State, many are covered with dust are over grown grasses. VICTOR EMERUWA followed the funds released by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency for construction and rehabilitation of healthcare centres in Kano State.
Rumo community is bustling with petty trading, though located on the outskirt of Sumaila Local Government Area of Kano State; it is a spot for commerce. For a population of more than 3,000 people, the basic infrastructure is over stretched. Water and sanitation are lacking. Like many rural communities in developing societies, Rumo is not the priority for development of infrastructure that can sustain basic livelihood, hence the people here live in circles of same conditions year on year. So, when the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency signaled plan to build a health facility in Rumo, it was greeted with so much fanfare. “We thought that finally the government has remembered us. We thought that we have been forgotten but when the building of the clinic commenced, we were very happy” said Musa Abubakar, a lanky 43 years old farmer resident in the community. But their happiness was short-lived. The contract had barely taken off that it has been abandoned.
Contract documents from the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency specifically spelt out the award of the sum of Twenty One Million, Nine Hundred and Eighty Six Thousand, Eight Hundred and Ninety Four Naira Only, N21, 986, 894. The contract is for the: “Settlement of Rumo Primary Healthcare Clinic” The contract was awarded in 2014 to Drumly Nigeria Ltd.
Five years after the award of the contract, the health centre has remained uncompleted and abandoned. The people of the community take out their anger on anyone who tries to defend the government. Yahaya Mustafa tells why they are angry with government: “The nearest hospital to this place is far, so when our wives and daughters are in labour (child bearing labour), they stay at home because of the distance” Bello said not a few women have died or lost their infants during child birth, a preventable infant and maternal mortality.
The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency is yet to give reasons for the abandoned project but a search conducted at the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, reveal that Drumly Nigeria Ltd is not registered as a construction company. It is a venture for supplies and contracts. All efforts to locate the office of the company in Kano were not successful.
At the Primary Healthcare facility in Yaryasa, Tundun Wada, the 7 room clinic is deserted, active. It is 11am Tuesday morning; medical personnel are not in the clinic today. The clinic environment is covered with overgrown vegetation, trees. The walls inside the clinic still look new from paints but outside the veranda are covered with dust and looked unkempt and uninhabited for a while. Yaryasa has a population of about 2000 people. Predominantly traders and herders. There are no medical centres to serve the community, until the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency awarded contract for the construction and equipping of a model healthcare centre. The centre which was awarded Twenty One Million, Nine Hundred and Eighty Six Thousand, Eight Hundred and Ninety Three Naira (N21, 986, 893) from a recorded budget of Thirty Eight Million Naira (38 Million) was completed and commissioned by former Governor Rabiu Kwakwanso. Ramata Abdulahi, 24, a nursing mother who resides in the community said the clinic only served the community for 3 months after which people stopped visiting the facility because of lack of medicine and adequate care. “You cannot find any medicine there, even panadol, you can’t get.
This my son (she points at her suckling child) was given birth to at home because we could not take the risk to visit the clinic” she said. She told this reporter that nurses posted to the facility spent their own personal funds to run the hospital, they contribute to buy medicine. It was not clear if Miagari Global Services the company which won the construction award supplied the drugs and equipment as this reporter could not access the clinic at the time of visit. However, it appears to be a management problem rather than a failed contract.
At the moment, the clinic is only opens on Mondays for counseling and referrals to other functioning health facilities in neighboring villages.
In 2014, NPHCDA awarded contract for the construction of a Primary Healthcare facility at Doguwa. The contract was to be executed by Young Stallion Nigeria Limited at the sum of Thirty Seven Million, Two Hundred and Ninety One Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira Only (37, 291, 650). As the procuring entity NPHCDA original budget for the project was Forty Three Million, Seven Hundred Thousand Naira Only. This primary healthcare facility could not be located in Doguwa.
Doguwa Local Government Area has about 10 completed but non functional Primary Health Care facilities.
The investigation still continues as NPHCDA official requests for time to study the enquiries on the situation of the health facilities and why it has remained non functional.
