The administrators of the Warji local government area of Bauchi State have failed to provide a single decent General Hospital that is suitable for treating sick people in the area. This is despite the huge federal allocations to the local government area, WikkiTimes findings show.
The near-collapse of the existing Warji General hospital and its total neglect from the Local and State governments have forced many Warji residents to seek medical services at the neighbouring Gwaram local government area of Jigawa State.
The main entrance and Side view of General Hospital, Warm
“The building of the hospital is gradually sinking into the ground and I am afraid one day it will just sink with both the patients and the health personnel, a health worker who preferred his identity hidden because of fury from authorities for speaking to a journalist told WikkiTimes.
He added “Everything in this hospital is in shambles. The building, the roofing, the equipment you name them. Some are outdated and some we don’t even have them”.
Another health personnel who also asked for anonymity said “Warji General Hospital has a single surgeon that is alternating between working in Warji and another LGA as the only doctor as well as visiting his family in faraway Lagos because I think his family lives in Lagos. You can imagine how he is coping to balance between his work and his family hundreds of kilometres apart. So, he can’t be on ground to provide medical services all the time. Even when he is around, he is overwhelmed sometimes,” a health worker in the Hospital who also asked for anonymity told WikkiTimes in Warji recently.
According to him, the hospital has only two qualified nurses that work on weekly shift basis which makes it extremely difficult for them to provide effective medical attention to their patients.
He added “I can confirm to you just as we have one doctor, so also nurses, the hospital has just two nurses and because they are not from Warji, they alternately weekly. So, a nurse attends to all the patients for one week too.”
The health worker further explained that “should the doctor travel to Bauchi on emergency or seminar or workshop or even go to another LGA where he works, the hospital would remain without a doctor for that time except for other staff like the CHEW that support or work in their absence.
A patient room and part of the reception of General Hospital, Warji
Residents in the LGA have continued to suffer the consequences in their daily lives as only patients who can afford cost of transportation and treatment in the nearby local governments in Jigawa or Bauchi State capital for better healthcare facilities go to the hospital.
“Our people now prefer to go Gwaram in Jigawa state or those with the resources would go to a better hospital in Bauchi City,” a resident Alh. Kabir Sani told WikkiTimes.
Warji General Hospital, the only hospital in Warji with a medical doctor (surgeon), is providing medical services to the entire population of Warji, which according to current estimation stands at over 200,000 residents in the local government area.
According to another resident, Musa Sarki, since the near-collapse of Warji’s main hospital that provides health care services to thousands of people in the area, only poor people who cannot afford medical care elsewhere patronise the Hospital.
“Go and do a random check in this town or even in some villages, you will find that most people that can afford to either go to Gwaram or Birnin Kudu in Jigawa State or Bauchi, the state capital for treatment are not wasting time,” Sarki told WikkiTimes.
However, WikkiTimes review of Warji LGA Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursement revealed that the local government council which was created in 1996 had been collecting a humongous amount of three (3) billion naira annually on the average.
According to the details of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursement obtained from Budgit.org, Warji LGA takes home an average of 250 million naira as its allocation monthly allocation from the Federation Account.
For instance, for the month of August 2023, the local government has received the sum of ₦245, 839,479.37 as its allocation for the month while Bauchi State Government received the sum of 7.2billlion naira as its allocation.
Screen shot of Warji LGA & Bauchi State Allocations obtained from BudgIT.org the month of August, 2023
In the month of September, the Budgit data disclosed that Warji LGA had received a whopping sum of ₦268,704,256.08 whereas Bauchi State government got the sum 8.2 billion naira as their monthly allocations respectively.
Screen shot of Warji LGA & Bauchi State Allocations obtained from BudgIT.org for the month of September, 2023
However, residents of Warji LGA continue to wallow in despair due to the failure of their authorities to provide a decent hospital that is suitable for human treatment.
A former caretaker chairman in Bauchi who is well versed with the allocations and disbursements of local government funds told WikkiTimes that local government councils and their chairmen are powerless when it comes to management of their funds as the State Government through commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs holds sway.
The former interim chairman, who asked for anonymity due to his political interest, explained that “honestly, without LG autonomy, chairmen cannot do anything because they don’t have access to their funds. When I was in power, I used to receive FAAC alert of my LGA but I would just be looking at the money and shortly, the Ministry for Local Government would debit all the money and give us salary with some token for running the administrative affairs of the council.”
He added that so long as State Government controls the LG resources, there can never be real development at grassroot level including provision of critical infrastructures like hospitals and schools.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently decried that 6 out of 10 deliveries are done at home in some states including Bauchi which put survival of both the mother and the child at higher risk.
According to a data on maternal mortality in Nigeria, Bauchi has 637 deaths per 100,000 while Warji is one of the leading LGAs with high maternal and child death in the state.
However, in 2021, Bauchi State Government through the State Ministry of Health commenced construction of a new General Hospital in Warji to replace the existing faulty one for a better health service delivery.
WikkiTimes fact-finding visit to the site of the construction showed that although staff quarters were almost completed, the main building of the Hospital has been abandoned for more than a year now, according to residents in the neighbourhood.
Some shots from the new General Hospital that was abandoned.
“When work started, we thought everything will be finished before the end of the year or at least by mid of 2022. Now it is almost three years now and the contractors have deserted the place,” a resident self-identified as Ado told WikkiTimes.
However, when contacted, Warji LGA Caretaker Chairman, Hon. Mohammed Shuaibu, attributed the delay in the completion of the new General Hospital to the contractors.
“The delay problem is from the contactor… most of the contractors are people who are close to the (state) government and they are leaning on that to fail to deliver.
“I complained to our lawmaker at the Bauchi State House of Assembly (BAHA) and drew his attention to the project and he has raised the issue. In fact, few days ago he was in Warji to inspect the situation of the new General Hospital.”
“On the issue of workforce in the Hospital I had to be there myself. I learned about the shortage of staff and sometimes absenteeism. The doctor I think has his family even in Lagos and he shuttles between Warji and another LGA as the sole doctor. We really have scarce professionals in the Hospital. We are hoping the State Government would address the problem by employing more professionals. We complained more than ones to the Ministry of Health about dearth of staff in the hospital. I think many have retired, others have died, others have left the country. So, there is need to employ more doctors. The last moment doctors were recruited was in 2014.
However, Hon. Garba Lawan, member representing Warji constituency at the Bauchi State House of Assembly, has recently visited the site of the now-abandoned new Warji General Hospital. According to a source close to the lawmaker, the visit was to ascertain the situation with the view of mobilising resources and ensuring that the contractor continue with the construction.
