Kano community demands doctors, ambulances for local hospital

Residents of Indabo community in Wudil Local Government Area of Kano State have called on government to provide their local health centre with ambulance and renovate roads leading into the community to make transportation to the hospital less problematic.

The health centre which was upgraded from a dispensary a decade ago is also without a single doctor and stops working at around 2pm each day, despite having six midwives on staff, said Abdullahi Suleiman, village head of Indabo.

This comes after a DFID-funded project Partnership for Transforming Health Services Phase 2 (PATHS2) helped train manpower, institute a drug-revolving fund procuring medicines estimated at N1.2 billion so far in Kano.

Mairo Suleiman, a resident of Indabo, said some women have died in childbirth on the 9km journey through rough terrain to get to the nearest Wudil General Hospital upon referral.

At least five health centres in the community need medical doctors, said district head of Wudil, Sarki Abdullahi Ibrahim, insisting the problems were being put before local representatives and the government.

“We have about 50% of what we are expecting at the moment,” he remarked.

Speaking at a mass mobilisation to make Indabo residents rediscover their local hospitals, PATHS2 national programme manager Mike Egboh said the shortcomings in the area are among reasons residents are reluctant to access care despite improvements in local health centres.

“We are trying to mobilise resources and support for health; to make health everybody’s business,” Egboh said.

“PATHS2 is not to replace state government. What we are doing is to make sure NYSC posts more doctors to this area.”

Kano State Commissioner for Health Abubakar Labaran said some of the 100 doctors and pharmacists currently on training abroad are expected to be posted to Indabo upon return.

He said Kano government has already ordered customised China-made tricycles to function as ambulances for emergency transport, at least one per ward.

Labaran said the complaints about ambulances were still on because the residents didn’t know about the order, but he couldn’t give further details, insisting the tricycles order was being handled by the ministry for local governments.