Tungan Habu PHC Is A Human Rights Violation
Tungan Habu is a rural community that is located in the Madara ward of the Kontagora Local Government Area of Niger State. The Tungan Habu community has a Primary Health Centre (PHC) which serves over 10 other communities, but the health workers at the PHC are dealing with so many facility-related challenges that it is obstructing their ability to do their job effectively.
Maimuna Audi, the officer in charge of the facility, says that the PHC has never had a functional labor room which makes delivery impossible, “We follow women who live close by to their houses to take delivery. Those that are live far away either deliver without help or are taken to Kontagora.”
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Audi also added that the Tungan Habu PHC has never had a water supply source, the toilets are broken down, there is no power supply source and the building that houses the PHC is run down. For Audi, the worst challenge that the PHC faces is the constant stock out of essential medications which the Kontagora LGA has allowed to go on for longer than necessary.
Mr. Musa Muhammadu, the community leader of Tungan Habu, explained that the health facility is not able to cater for the healthcare needs of his community and others. According to him, the women in the community don’t even bother to access the facility’s antenatal services as they are often out of stock of the necessary routine medications. Despite this, he gave his appreciation to the health workers for trying their best to provide the adequate care, especially by following pregnant women to their houses to take delivery.
A Primary Health Centre should be able to provide quality and adequate maternal services. When it is unable to provide the services that it was created to provide, it is alarming because it robs the people in that community of a basic human right. The Tungan Habu community is asking for the following in order to right this wrong: a total rehabilitation of the health facility, a well built and fully equipped labor room in the PHC, constant provision of essential drugs to the PHC, provision of water and electricity to the PHC, and a renovation of all of the toilets in the PHC.
