Inhabitants of Taka Lafia Karshi Community in Karu Local Government of Nasarawa State, continue to narrate how they are dying because the only hospital in their area has since collapsed.
This is the terrible situation in Taka community hospital even as the Nasarawa state government in 2021 allocated N12 billion expenditure to healthcare.
Mr. Mathias Uloko, a community resident, speaking to MAWA via a telephone conversation, described the Taka community hospital as the worst healthcare centre where people go to be certified dead instead of getting treated for their illnesses.
Mr. Uloko, a 42-year-old man, who claims to have lived in the Taka community all his life, narrated how a good number of the inhabitants have died because there is no hospital to provide them with effective healthcare delivery.
He, however, painted a disturbing picture of how children and pregnant women are the most affected as a result of the deplorable community hospital in his community.
“What we have in Taka community is death centre and not a healthcare centre, there are no drugs there, only people who have no other alternative and have resigned their fate to death go to the PHC”, Uloko told MAWA.
Miss Roseline Akpiti, another community resident, who spoke to MAWA on the telephone, described the hospital as terrible and shameful.
Akpiti, who said she has lost two family members as s result of the deplorable nature of the community hospital, accused the government of refusing to provide decent healthcare for the inhabitants.
In an angry tone, she said government officials only storm the community in large numbers during elections to canvass for votes.
She, however, pointed out that the practice of politicians disappearing after getting votes from the people, abandoning them to suffer and die of basic infrastructural deficit is not acceptable to them anymore.
“Government officials can’t come here during an election, get our votes, and abandon us, no, we cannot take that, this is wickedness that we cannot take anymore” Akpiti told MAWA.
Mr. Ibrahim, a community resident who prefers only his first name mentioned, in a telephone conversation, told MAWA that only inhabitants who cannot afford private hospital bills go to the PHC for treatment.
Ibrahim, described the community hospital as the worst terrible he has ever seen, pointing out there are no medicines in the hospital.
He also accused the government of recruiting quack medical personnel that cannot effectively provide healthcare to the inhabitants.
It is not, however, clear how the Nasarawa state government allocated N12 billion expenditure to healthcare intervention in 2021, and Taka community hospital is this terrible.
Tracka, a public accountability organization that exposed the terrible nature of the hospital has since appealed to the Nasarawa state government to help fix it.
MAWA Foundation could not immediately reach out to the Nasarawa State government for an official response.
See Nasarawa State 2021 Key Allocations (Health Cycled Below)