The ugly side of patronising day care centres

Day care centres/crèches have become a fast growing business in our society today. While they provide essential services, investigations reveal that many are substandard and have no business taking care of children. When Hauwa Suleiman had her baby, it was a joyful experience. The bond with her child grew more and more by the day […]

Day care centres/crèches have become a fast growing business in our society today. While they provide essential services, investigations reveal that many are substandard and have no business taking care of children.

When Hauwa Suleiman had her baby, it was a joyful experience. The bond with her child grew more and more by the day but this was soon cut short when she had to resume work. She had to take her baby to a day care centre.
“It’s not easy leaving your child at a day care centre or crèche because no one can take care of your child like yourself. Most people working at the centres are doing that because they have no other job and so they don’t have any passion to cater for the children. Hardly will you find anyone working in these centres that has any passion for the job. For me, I have not come across one. I have kept my child in different day care centres from Gwarinpa to Jabi and even in Kado estate where I live now; they don’t have passion for what they are doing,” Suleiman said.
She continued: “One of my quarrels with them is that they are not hygienic. My daughter started day care at four months. We were always on admission in the hospital. She would be stooling and vomiting as a result of poor personal hygiene. Despite the fact that I asked them to use one cutlery per meal because I pack them in a set, yet my child still fell sick,” Suleiman explained.
Another traits found in some of these centres is maltreatment of children by staff. Amina Tijjani shares her experience: “On one occasion, I had gone to the day care centre to pick my child when I saw a nanny beating a child. Beating a child that was barely a year old, what will the child learn? I just warned her not to do that to my child because I would not take it lightly with her.
“I have also heard that some of these nannies give medications to babies to sleep. I don’t know how true this is,” Tijjani said.
Mrs Emmanuella Aina said some of the centres are understaffed.
“A nanny will take care of seven or eight children. How will she cope? One will be crying, another wants food while another wants to sleep, how will she cope? It’s because I don’t have an alternative that is why I take my child to the day care centre,” Aina said sadly.
Another mother, who said she dropped off her child in the morning and could not go to check him during the day said, “Can you imagine they did not change the diaper of my child till evening? Meanwhile, a baby’s diaper needs to be changed after five hours. When I asked, they claimed they forgot,” Chinyere Nduka, said.
She continued: “Sometimes, the baby will be having high temperature and nobody will call to tell me. No matter how much they charge, I am not satisfied with their services,” she said.
Mrs Sherifat Sani’s experience, on the other hand, was somewhat different. She said, “The woman that took care of my child at day care centre tried. She treats those children like her own. And when my child has temperature, she usually calls me. I used her services for two years,” Sani said.
At a day care centre visited at Kubwa, our investigation revealed that the space to manage the children was very small. At another centre, the nanny was not fully trained to manage children.
Mrs Beatrice Olowakore, a proprietress of the centre explained. “Here, we have two nannies. One is trained to take care of older children and we have educational CDs which we play for them on DVD.
“The other nanny who takes care of children between three months to nine months is a mother of two. As a mother she is better qualified for the job,” she said.
In this day care, the children were seen sleeping on their various beds unlike at other centres where children shared beds. She also did not allow visitors step into the room except they removed their shoes to maintain hygienic environment.
Mrs Mercy Dogo, a proprietor at a day care centre, said she has also heard that some nannies gave medications to get babies to sleep, noting that she cannot do that because she is also a mother. “I can’t do that. If I have too many children to cater for, I will rather stop accepting children than giving children drugs to sleep. I am a mother too. Why should I do that?” she asked.
In her day care centre, the children were kept in a corridor while renovation was going on at the sitting room where, she said she kept the children. The children were seen lying on the couch and inhaling dust from the renovation work going on.
In another day care centre, children meant for the day care were crammed into the same class with children in the play group class. The proprietress claims this is to enable the younger children learn how to speak early.
However, when the class for the children was opened, it was virtually empty. No toys, no mattresses for children to sleep on, no television to watch educative programmes and the odour from a nearby drainage filled the room. Thanks for the ceiling fan that was on in the room.
Mr Ajayi Adeyemi, Deputy Director, Child Welfare, Social Development Secretariat of the Federal Capital Authority Administration responded to some of the issues. “What we met on ground when we resumed last year August was not palatable. Hence, a stakeholders meeting was held to map out plans for the day care centres/orphanages. Some of them were not registered but we have told them the requirements,” Adeyemi said.
He said some of the requirements stated in their gazette was a suitable accommodation which must not be located near a bar joint or any hazardous place amongst other things.
“They will also need to pick up a registration form for N2,000 and pay N20,000 for registration after which  will send an inspection team to visit the place and forward our observation to the secretary of the Social Development Secretariat. If they meet our guidelines we will give them an interim letter to operate for a year after which we will give them full approval to operate,” he said.
 He however said that some day care centres came to pick up the registration form and they were  giving others till April this year to register.
“Then we hope to have another stakeholders meeting. We are not where we should be yet,” added.