Residents of the Apata community in the Igalamela local government area of Kogi state are left to die of an illness that can easily be treated as the only primary healthcare in the area has since collapsed.
Apata community has since been abandoned while community residents are left to die without any form of healthcare delivery.
Worse still, the Kogi state government in her 2021 budget approved N50 million for the Primary Healthcare Development Agency to purchase medical equipment and the sum of N31.5 billion for the office of the governor.
A breakdown of the 2021 budget that is published on the state website shows that the Primary Healthcare Development Agency got the approval of N50, 000,000 for the purchase of medical equipment, while the office of the governor got N31, 555,338,375 approvals.
This is even as the Kogi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency’s core mandate is to control preventable diseases, improve access to basic health services, and strengthen Primary Health Care (PHC) across communities in the 21 Local Government Areas.
This is even as visits by MAWA FOUNDATION to some communities in Kogi, particularly in Lokoja-the state capital, Igalamela, Idah, Ofu, Ankpa, Ayingba, Dekina, show residents suffer grave healthcare inadequacy mainly as a result of dilapidated hospitals and lack of healthcare facilities.
Still, the Kogi state government, rather than investing in healthcare delivery, has put a meager amount of money into healthcare while allocating a huge amount that is almost the entire annual resources of the state to the office of the governor.
Apata is not the one community suffering from a lack of primary healthcare in Kogi state. Across the state, numerous communities are suffering the absence of healthcare facilities while residents continue to die.