By Asaye Bankole
Pregnant women in Gbaka, a community in Mbaatirkyaa Council Ward of Buruku Local Government Area of Benue State, are being forced to travel on motorcycles to distant towns to deliver their babies, due to the total collapse of the only health facility serving the area.
It was learnt that the Primary Health Care Centre in Gbaka, meant to serve over 5000 people, has been abandoned and is now in a state of disrepair.
A civic technology platform, Monitng, which visited the facility, described the situation as alarming and life-threatening.
“Women in labour are transported on motorcycles to faraway towns. Children with fever and elderly people with chronic conditions are stranded without care. The clinic is no longer a place of healing; it has become a death trap,” Monitng reported.
“Residents told us how snakes and other reptiles often slither into the clinic. With no medical personnel to attend to emergencies, the sick are left to suffer and die.”
“The community has written numerous letters and made passionate appeals to both past and present administrations in Benue State. They have called, pleaded, and waited. But not once has anyone from the government shown up. Their pleas have been met with silence, even as lives are lost daily due to the failed state of this facility.”
“During election campaigns, Gbaka comes alive with promises. Politicians show up with grand pledges to fix the health centre, equip it with drugs, and post medical staff. These promises spark brief hope. But after the votes are cast, the politicians vanish, and the community is left with nothing but broken dreams and a clinic that continues to rot.”
“Despite the billions of naira spent on the health sector under the Ortom administration, the people of Gbaka say they saw no impact. Their only health facility remains abandoned. They ask: how many more of us must die before our lives matter to those in power? When will rural communities be treated with dignity and urgency?”
The residents are calling on the current administration led by Governor Hyacinth Alia to urgently intervene and save lives in the community.
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