From Kwara to Edo, rodents take over abandoned hospitals

Look around your community. There should be at least one abandoned government project or the other. They are a common place in Nigeria. If it is not a broken-down water project, it is likely to be an uncompleted road or rail transportation project.

While nothing catastrophic may happen if a contractor delays a housing project for years, and people may live with the discomfort of a neglected road repair that drags for years, this is not the case with a public hospital, the sole purpose of which is to save lives.

For every second that a health facility is neglected, lives of hundreds of patients, including accident victims, are endangered or outright wasted.

Though the presence of functional health facilities have been established, investigations by our correspondent revealed that many federal, state and local government-commissioned health projects in Kwara, Edo and some other states are lying wretched in uncompleted conditions.

Investigations carried out by our correspondent who paid several visits to these abandoned health centres and spoke with residents in these communities revealed that some uncompleted health centres have become ‘guest rooms’ for destitute persons, rodents and reptiles.

Goats and other livestock are regular visitors and are also the co-inhabitants in some of these centres that are, ironically, at an advanced stage before they were abandoned.

For instance, it was observed that some of the abandoned facilities in Kwara State have wards, theatre rooms and pharmacists’ sections before they were neglected.

Consequently, some roofing sheets, ceiling fans, and other fittings have fallen off while weeds have overgrown other sections.

Security men guarding these structures complained that they were being owed many months’ salaries and that those in charge had not shown up.

Investigations by our correspondent also revealed that the neglected comprehensive health centre projects were commissioned by the Federal Government during the late former President Umaru’ Yar’Adua administration in conjunction with local government councils in the state.