Five or six sick children are dying daily at an internally displaced persons’ camp in Gwoza because of a lack of medical facilities and medicine – and pregnant women in labour have to be carried in wheelbarrows to get to the nearest hospital in the town.
Residents of the Pulka IDP camp in the Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State told RNI reporter Fatima Grema Modu that the situation was dire.
The IDPs, who fled because of persistent attacks by insurgents in the their home cities, towns and villages, included people from Maiduguri and other towns in Borno State, Dar-Jamal village in the Kumshe-Banki axis in the Bama Local Government Area, and from Kolofata and Kirawa-Jimni in Cameroon.
Aisha Haruna, a mother of five, said there used to be a hospital in the camp but it had been closed and now they had to go for treatment to the hospital in Gwoza town.
“One of the problems is a lack of transport to get to the hospital,” she said.
“During labour, women have to be carried there in wheelbarrows – just like dead bodies – because there are no tricycles or other means of transport. And, because the hospital in the camp closed, anyone who is able goes to the government hospital in town. But the strongest medicines available in the hospital are paracetamols, which are also running out.”
She said they were forced to buy prescribed medicines at a private chemist, which cost a fortune.
“The only medicine we get at the hospital is paracetamol so we have to go to the chemist and the medicine is very expensive. Sometimes we sell our food to by medicine because we have no other option”.
Haruna said they had no antenatal or postnatal services for pregnant women in the camp or at the hospital and, as a result, babies were suffering from a variety of diseases and other illnesses.
“I have five children, some are suffering from measles, coughs and other illnesses because it is cold in the tent. My children’s noses are running like water.”
Sometimes five or six children died daily in the camp, she said.
“We cannot get help to bury the children because most of the IDPs are out of the camp in the bushes cutting trees for firewood or farming.”
Ibrahim Modu, the chairman of the camp, said there were many people living there from Borno State and other parts of northeast Nigeria, as well as people from towns and villages in Cameroon.
“We used to have doctors inside the camp who worked with Médecins Sans Frontières [MSF] – Doctors Without Borders – and other international and local non-governmental organisations. They used to treat ill IDPs immediately. But the MSF left the camp, saying they were needed in Zamfara in the northwest of Nigeria. They took all their belongings, including medical supplies.”
He said the situation was dire in the camp, especially as there was no transport to take the ill to the hospital in town.
“When people are sick now, most of them suffer in their tents in the camp without receiving treatment. Most of the residents are very poor and do not even have money to buy food for a daily meal – forget about travelling costs and buying medicine. Poverty is hitting us hard. Those who have money can call for an ambulance to take them to Maiduguri for treatment. But most just have to suffer in silence,” said Modu.
“Even going to the town hospital does not really help if the person is seriously ill because all the medicine on offer there are paracetamols, which do not work.”
He said they had complained to the government about the scarcity of health facilities but nothing had been done to help them.
AISHA JAMAL
