Indabo: Where there is no doctor

The doctors saw him under a tent mounted for free health care in Indabo, handed a clutch of drugs and oral rehydration therapy to his mother and sent both to the community’s health centre, a minute’s walk away.The urgency is in how close the child came to becoming a fatality. Dehydration worsens illnesses and contributes […]

The doctors saw him under a tent mounted for free health care in Indabo, handed a clutch of drugs and oral rehydration therapy to his mother and sent both to the community’s health centre, a minute’s walk away.
The urgency is in how close the child came to becoming a fatality. Dehydration worsens illnesses and contributes to deaths in children.
But why Idris’s mother didn’t visit a doctor until a day of free health care is declared  crucial in Indabo.
It has at least five health centres, but none has a doctor.
Indabo primary health centre was upgraded from a dispensary 10 years ago and has six midwives but is still unable to run shifts, says Abdullahi Suleiman, village head of Indabo.
The centre closes at 2 or 4pm each day. But it’s biggest problems are   road, ambulance and water supply.
Despite four boreholes, Indabo still buys water from tankers selling at N25 per jerrican and supplying water sometimes contaminated with petrol or diesel, says Suleiman.
The community in Wudil Local Government Area of Kano State is separated from town by more than 9km of rough terrain that makes for hazardous transport.
And that’s assuming there’s an ambulance, a constant complaint residents point out.
Considering the shortfalls, district head of Wudil, which consists of Indabo, Sarki Abdullahi Ibrahim, said tellingly, “We have only about 50% of what we are expecting at the moment.”
Among expectations were more doctors, and they gradually began creeping in with assistance from Partnership for Transforming Health Services Phase Two (PATHS2), a DFID-funded programme, according to Kano State health commissioner Abubakar Labaran.
“We have recorded some improvement in manpower and drug-revolving fund, where PATHS2 has impacted remarkably,” he said.
The organization estimates it has procured drugs in excess of N1.2 billion so far in Kano state and helped steer the posting of doctors on national youth service to remote areas like Indabo where working doctors are reluctant to practise.
But residents are still reluctant to use health centres in their locality, prompting a mega mobilization in Indabo last week.
Mairo Suleiman has seen fellow women die in childbirth at most and many at  least gone into complicated labour—during rough transport to Wudil General Hospital.
“Our problem, apart from lack of doctors, is the road. Sometimes when there is a problem, women even die before they get to the hospital in Wudil,” she told a gathering of residents and officials out  to  mobilize Indabo.
Reactions from her and other residents prompted a meeting at the council secretariat to consider ways on plugging leakages in Wudil’s health care.
PATHS National Progamme Manager Mike Egboh said the public would need community dialogue to convince it and build its confidence that its health centres are now  equipped to meet their needs.
“We are trying to mobilise resources and support for health, to make health everybody’s business,” Egboh said.
“PATHS2 is not to replace state government. What we are doing is to make sure NYSC posts more doctors to this area.”
Kano State government has some 100 doctors and pharmacists on training abroad, and some are expected to be drafted to Indabo upon return, said health commissioner Abubakar Labaran.
The community’s need for an ambulance to ease emergency transport could also be helped by the state’s order for customised tricycles from China, he added.
Ambulances and doctors are more than just confidence boosts—and could spell the difference between life and death, if it means children like Idris can be taken to hospital early when they fall ill.
On admission in one of six empty beds at Indabo’s primary health centre, syringes meant to transfuse ORT into Idris keep popping out of his skin.
Two doctors on the medical team providing free care for the day attempted to contain and medicate him.
At the foot of his bed, his mother can’t say why she hasn’t come to hospital earlier. But a next question is what’s for Idris when there isn’t a doctor to be found.