Women and Children in the Kigbe community at Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT-Abuja), Nigeria’s capital city risk death over a collapsed healthcare facility.
This is even as the community residents rely on the collapsed health facility for their healthcare delivery. This is a circumstance that puts women and children in a more dangerous situation and must be immediately addressed to save the lives who depend on the hospital for treatment of their illness.
The Kigbe community is not an exception, many communities in FCT-Abuja have no functional Primary Health Care Centre. In communities hospitals are found, they are often in deplorable condition and cannot offer adequate healthcare delivery to the residents. This accounts for a major reason residents die of illnesses that can easily be treated.
The Kigbe community and other examples from FCT communities are a reflection of the collapsed healthcare system in Nigeria with the poor who cannot afford alternative healthcare delivery from private hospitals within Nigeria or abroad left to die.
Collapsed healthcare has continued and persisted in Abuja and other parts of Nigeria as a result of citizens’ inability to place accountability demands on the government and the leadership. It is only when citizens become active and place accountability demands on the leaders that the state will be compelled to fix public infrastructure. And, Hospitals are a major essential component of public infrastructure.
For instance, there is a need for participatory advocacy that will place a demand for the Kigbe community to benefit from the N1.15 trillion 2024 FCT Budget. Mr. Nyesom Wike the FCT Minister when appeared before the senate to defend the FCT N1.15 trillion 2024 Statutory Budget said it is solely to facilitate development in the rural communities of FCT. While affirming community transformation as the reason for the 2024 budget, Mr. Wike disclosed that N726.3 billion was allocated to capital expenditure, representing 63.3% of the budget. A decision that confirms the government’s commitment to providing rural infrastructure.
Therefore, fixing collapsed hospitals that have affected the inability of FCT residents to access healthcare delivery must be a major priority in the spending of N1.15 trillion FCT 2024 budget.