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Investigation: Despite billions of naira in health spending, Osun’s rural clinics remain neglected
🇳🇬 Nigeria /Crime & Justice

Investigation: Despite billions of naira in health spending, Osun’s rural clinics remain neglected

From Premium Times · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • A PREMIUM TIMES investigation found deteriorating buildings, inadequate supplies and limited services at Agbinpa Primary Healthcare Centre in Osun State.
  • The facility’s sole caregiver serves pregnant women, children and other patients, while residents travel about 26 kilometres to Ede for basic blood tests and scans.
  • The findings come despite state spending and contracts aimed at revitalising primary healthcare and improving rural services.

Overgrown grass, peeling paint and deep cracks mark the neglect at Agbinpa Primary Healthcare Centre in Ede South Local Government Area of Osun State. Parts of the compound are unusable, while other sections have fallen into disrepair after years without major rehabilitation.

Even if I’m at home and somebody comes to call me because a child is sick or a woman wants to give birth, I will come.

— Rashidat LamidiThe sole caregiver at Agbinpa Primary Healthcare Centre describes responding to patients outside working hours.

Reaching the facility from Osogbo takes about an hour by commercial motorcycle over long stretches of uneven rural roads. Inside, Rashidat Lamidi runs the centre largely alone. She attends to pregnant women, children and other patients, responds to emergency calls after work, clears the surroundings and sometimes buys basic consumables when supplies run out.

“Even if I’m at home and somebody comes to call me because a child is sick or a woman wants to give birth, I will come,” Lamidi said. She said the state government pays her salary regularly, but has not given the facility the same attention, despite visits by politicians and officials, particularly during election periods. “They come here, but they don’t do anything.”

They come here, but they don’t do anything.

— Rashidat LamidiShe criticises politicians and government officials who visit the facility without improving it.

The centre has no functional laboratory, forcing patients who need basic blood tests to travel about 26 kilometres to Ede. Delivery instruments are inadequate, and women in labour buy gloves, methylated spirit and other supplies before receiving care. Lamidi also worries about what will happen after her retirement. “I don’t know what will happen to this place,” she said.

I don’t know what will happen to this place.

— Rashidat LamidiShe expresses concern about the centre’s future after her retirement.

Residents still rely on the facility. Iya Beji, who gave birth to all five of her children there, praised the nurse’s commitment but said the hospital’s condition discourages patients. Those needing scans must travel to Ede, where transport alone costs about N6,000. Another resident, Abdulrahaman Babatunde, said commercial motorcycles rarely use the road.

The nurse is good. It is only because of the condition of the hospital that people do not come here.

— Iya BejiA resident praises the nurse while describing how the facility’s condition keeps patients away.
About this summary

Originally published by Premium Times in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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