The clinic built by a community: reaching zero-dose children in rural Nigeria
Health workers are teaming up with the local community to build a new health centre from the ground up in Ogun State, Nigeria.
- 7 July 2022
- 6 min read
- by Adesewa Adelaja
The Igbosoro community lies between Lagos State and Ogun State in the south-western region of Nigeria. The only means of transportation is by motorcycle, popularly known as ‘Okadas’. There are small private hospitals, which are expensive for the majority of the community members, and the closest government-run health centre to them is a long distance away.
“I work daily to make sure we put this building up. While the rains are hampering building at the moment, we will make sure this health centre stands for the sake of the children.”
Bad road access
The road to the community is marred with erosion, which makes it difficult for cars. While the Okadas can manoeuvre, it gets tricky during the rainy season because the road becomes soft and slippery.
Credit: Adesewa Adelaja
The Olu (leader) of Igbosoro, W. Kehinde Agbuga, is concerned about the state of the road and has appealed to the government to help them fix it.
“Our major problem is the road,” he says. “It is difficult to move from place to place. Many people have lost their lives on this road, falling from the bike with their children. I don’t have a good feeling when I see and hear of this.”
Credit: Adesewa Adelaja
“Though the road is bad, we cannot just neglect the innocent children. That is part of our sacrifice as health workers,” says Magret Ogini, a senior nurse in charge of immunisation monitoring at the Itelewa health centre in Ikorodu, Lagos.
She adds, “We have wards and in each of the wards we have ten teams that go into hard-to-reach communities who miss out on immunisation, like the Igbosoro community. We also have mobilisers whose main function is to go from house to house in the community to identify children who have never been immunised.”
Lack of access to health care facilities
“I have the contacts of doctors and nurses that I call regularly, and I have appealed to private individuals to come and build hospitals in the community to take care of the people. We have also made space for a government health centre and started building,” Agbuga says.
“The building of the health centre is a community effort. Everyone is contributing to it in some way. Hopefully, when we achieve this, we can get the government to send down health care workers that will work from here.”
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One community youth leader, Odunsanya Akeem Jaiyesimi, is helping build the health centre. He says that challenge of going all the way to Lagos for something as simple as immunisation is what motivates him to make sure that the health centre stands.
“I work daily to make sure we put this building up. While the rains are hampering building at the moment, we will make sure this health centre stands for the sake of the children,” he says.
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Reaching zero-dose children
“As health workers, we are called to do this. Since they are closer to us here, we try to make sure they don’t miss out. We received permission from the Ogun State primary board to send mobilisers into the community. We have mapped out plans to reach these children,” says Eluwole Alaba, the senior staff nurse-midwife in charge of the Odonla health care immunisation programme.
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“One of my friends is a team member that comes here for immunisation, so before I had my baby, I already had all the information I needed. I bring my friends along too. We don’t have to take an Okada; we just take a stroll down to the central place where the nurses come. We don’t have to go far anymore.”
She adds, “We know the problems the community face, which is why I organised my staff and divided them into teams to go into the communities. They are caught in between two states, but they are closer to us. The community is a priority for me. I have trained some of the members of that community, and they are now part of my team.”
She explains that the strategy of involving the community members in her team has built trust between them and the community.
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"The relationship has helped us track the children that have not been immunised at all. We continuously seek out those from the community who are interested in getting an education in health care, take them under our wings and train them. They help us with awareness and remind the mothers to come on the day of our outreach."
“Today is one of our outreach days. We are going there for the measles vaccination campaign. In addition to measles vaccine, we are administering vitamin A supplements, COVID-19 vaccines and routine immunisation. I have organised for people to go to the schools in the community, while others will go to other parts of the community. It does not matter if they are in Ogun state and we are in Lagos, the goal is for no one to be missed during the exercise.”
Echoing this, Prof Akin Abayomi, the Lagos Commissioner for health says, “The measles campaign is being integrated with other services to improve efficiency and effectiveness, especially at the health care level.”
Mothers looking out for each other
Aminat Jaiyesimi, a young mother with a two-month-old baby, says she has never missed immunising her child.
“One of my friends is a team member that comes here for immunisation, so before I had my baby, I already had all the information I needed. I bring my friends along too. We don’t have to take an Okada; we just take a stroll down to the central place where the nurses come. We don’t have to go far anymore.”
Madam Bolanle Olagunju, a community leader and a chief mother in the church, says that she teaches young women health education in the church and the community.
She says, “Teaching them about the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding and immunisation helps them understand that many diseases are avoidable. Luckily, the immunisation outreach has made it easy for us. Every Sunday, we remind them to take their children for immunisation at the allocated place in the community the following Monday or Wednesday.”
“I am a grandmother. I organise other grandmothers to help me with the health education and we also help track babies who have not yet taken immunisation in the community. We tell the health workers, and they take it from there. This is our way of contributing to the community,” Madam Olagunju adds.
“Hopefully, very soon, our health care centre will be ready, and maybe, when the government sees the effort we had made so far, they will do our roads,” Agbuga says.
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