‘HIV/AIDS cases worrisome in IDP camps’

Betty Olutunde is the brain behind Betnelly Charity Foundation which partners hospitals and other organisations to provide succour to Internally Displaced Persons as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency. She speaks on the journey so far. What do you do with the IDPs? We go to the IDP camps, get the sick people among […]

Betty Olutunde is the brain behind Betnelly Charity Foundation which partners hospitals and other organisations to provide succour to Internally Displaced Persons as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency. She speaks on the journey so far.

What do you do with the IDPs?
We go to the IDP camps, get the sick people among the IDPs. We are registered with some hospitals to treat the sick IDP patients, mostly the children and women because there is no clinic or hospital facility for them. I am not in the medical field, I have a background in business management and facility.
Why did you decide to do this for the IDPs?
We have a medical team under our NGO, so the medical team goes to the IDP camps and work with them, they find out those that are sick. We are a charitable organization, the IDPs are internally displaced, they are just there, we have been seeing them all around and we are not pleased with their situation and we know that this people need our help.
What where your worries when you decided to take on this?
 My worries are people could die there. They came out from a traumatic and war zone area, and have even more challenges as IDPS when you look at their overall wellbeing. So my worries were these people who came from those areas have not been checked and can be sick, may be of high blood pressure due to what they are going through, some might even have been sick while they were at home. All the running around, war, moving from place to place like refugees can make some of them to die from attack, anything can happen. But if they are treated that can ease some of their pain.
What kind of illnesses have you treated the most?
We have peculiar cases of children with HIV/AIDS, some are having VVF and there is malaria. It is worrisome.  Malaria is one of the major case we are having, which they would have gotten from going from one place to the other because their camps are not really homes but just tents.
How are you able to fund the project?
We have individuals that have been supportive. The ENL consults as one of our partners, tap continental is also one of our partners, they have been the ones supporting us and we are hoping that the victim support fund which we have heard about will get to us. We tried to access it but it is not accessible for now, we don’t know what they are working on but we believe that we would be able to access it.
What would you want to see changed regarding medical services for IDPs?
Honestly the government should support the NGOs, they should partner with us, so that we would help them in identifying the sick people in the camp and reduce the case at hand.
How do you do follow-ups and what kind of feed backs do you get from your beneficiaries?
After we take them to the hospital, the hospital is able to tell us how far they have gone. We take them to the hospital and make sure they are being treated, all the IDPs need to do is to submit themselves to us for treatment, we take them where they can get treatment, then take them back when they feel better.
Do you have cases where the number of people you have to treat is overwhelming?
Yes, in such cases we ask them to bear with us. Initially we were using two hospitals, presently we are trying to increase the number of hospitals we are using. The more effective hospitals are the private hospitals because in the government hospitals we don’t get anything back.
What gives you the most joy in what you are doing?
The bomb blast victim. There are two cases we have been following up, they are Daniel and Ayuba, we have been following up with their treatment and we know that by the grace of God they have been receiving treatment, they are cooperating and everything is going on fine. We just need people to support this victims, they can contact our charity foundation, give them the address of the hospitals they are in and assist them.