PARACETAMOL CLINIC: DESPITE GULPING N9.87M INOMA PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTRE LOCKED IN ANAMBRA WEST LGA

Secret Reporters

It is known that the major purpose of a primary health care centre which is usually spearheaded by a team of healthcare professionals, is to provide accessible, affordable, and available primary health care to society especially in rural communities, however, this is not the case in Inoma primary health care centre located in Anambra West Local government in Anambra State despite gulping millions of Naira for its renovation.

Information gathered by SecretReporters showed that the health centre which was renovated with the sum of N9,870,000 (Nine Million Eight Hundred and Seventy Thousand Naira) in July 2020, was callously placed under lock and key preventing residents of the community from accessing the facility.

Investigations further revealed that the renovation project which was approved by the Anambra State Community and Social Development Agency ( ANCSDA) and included the construction of a borehole, rehabilitation and equipping of the health care centre, had just one worker, a Nurse whom sources squealed doubles as the doctor, security, cleaner amongst others.

In a video seen online, it was also gathered that the nurse, who became sick with no doctor, or medical personnel to run the centre, locked the facility and wrote her mobile number on the entrance to be contacted for emergency cases only.

“If your child is sick and you call the nurse, she will have to take a bike down to the hospital and open the place before attending to you and you have to pay for her transport. If you call her in the night she will tell you to wait till morning because she cannot come out at that time… my brother, many children have died because of this, I have never seen where a hospital is locked for any reason, and it is normally open 24/7” Okwuluora, a resident of the community lamented.

Findings also showed that the hospital which was commissioned by the Governor of the state, Willie Obiano, amidst fanfare in 2020, was neither equipped nor have a functional borehole facility as contained in the contract award.

It would be recalled that indigenes of the community had in March 2020, embarked on a peaceful protest calling on the Anambra State government to bring infrastructural development to the area as they had for decades experienced neglect while others benefit from the dividends of democracy in the state.