With only two beds and a severe shortage of medicines, the clinic at Kofa internally displaced persons’ camp – also known as Dalori IDP camp 2 – is finding it extremely difficult to treat the thousands of people who live there.

Extreme hunger, from which most of the residents suffer, has made it even harder because the famine is affecting more people and they are falling ill with each passing day.

The camp, in the Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State, was officially opened in 2014. It is home to more than 5,000 IDPs from Bama, Gwoza and other areas of Konduga.

Fasting for Ramadan, the harsh weather and starvation are taking their toll on the residents, draining their immune systems and leaving them vulnerable to all kinds of illnesses.

Neighbouring villages and communities have no clinic at all. So, apart from dealing with its 5,000 residents, more people from other areas swarm the health facility as well. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in 2017 that one-third of the 749 known health facilities in Borno State had been completely or partially destroyed by the insurgency.

Kofa’s clinic is overrun and simply not coping. Inadequate essential medicines hinder proper treatment and the volume of people needing care is overwhelming.

Mohammed Usman, a clinician at Kofa camp, told RNI that at least 70 patients are being treated daily at the clinic. He said it is even worse in the rainy season when typhoid, which is spread by drinking or eating contaminated food, and other water-borne diseases, such as cholera, hepatitis, gastroenteritis and diarrhoea, among others, are rife.

He said if an ill person comes in with severe health complications they are referred to another better-equipped clinic or hospital. Some patients are asked to buy the required medicines prescribed to them.

“But most patients do not have money to pay for prescribed drugs and they also do not have any means of transportation to get to another health facility even if we refer them,” Usman said.

“The clinic has only two beds with insufficient medicines or drugs. The situation is critical. Something has to be done urgently to ensure people don’t die because of a lack of medicines and equipment.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) still supports the clinic by providing medicine, but it is not enough. And it pays the stipends given to volunteers working in the clinic.

But, Usman said, it is time for the government to step in and do its part.

“We need more health personnel at the clinic, which also treats patients from the neighbouring communities of the Konduga Local Government Area, such as of Kofa, Haya Wango, Ngomari Kare K3li, Bulabulin, Kalari Abdulbe, Kotori and Mainari. If we don’t get help urgently from the government and humanitarian organisations we will not cope. We need adequate medical facilities to ensure effective healthcare service delivery. Or, better still, they could build another clinic for the neighbouring villages to help reduce the burden on this clinic which is really meant to serve only the IDPs in this camp.”

Mohammed Ahmed Jalo, head of the nutrition unit at Kofa camp, told RNI that his unit is responsible for handling malnutrition cases.

“We have some medicine to tackle the problem but we need more. We are dealing with a nutrition crisis that affects children from birth to 59 months [five years old]. Residents of the camp do not have money to buy nutritious food for themselves, so their infants and young children suffer, too. Malnutrition refers to when a person’s diet does not provide enough nutrients or the right balance of nutrients for optimal health.

“Children in the camp suffer from malnutrition and get ill because of a lack of quality food intake and poor infant feeding practices. But, we are not the only ones suffering. Other sections of the clinic are overstretched with many patients within the camp and its environs coming for treatment. The clinic is facing serious challenges because of inadequate medical facilities,” Jalo said.

He said the United Nations has put in place and begun implementing the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programme, which is a strategy for identifying and treating uncomplicated cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) without requiring hospitalisation, potentially increasing coverage and decreasing cost relative to treating SAM in a hospital setting.

SHETTIMA LAWAN MONGUNO