Bulmun Sunday Dakwal Grace Joseph’s labour pains began at 9 a.m. on a quiet morning in Tan-Jol area of Plateau State earlier this year. With each passing hour, the discomfort grew more intense. Beyond the pains, what loomed larger in her mind was the uncertainty of where she would deliver her child. In Tan-Jol, a village in Riyom Local Government Area (LGA), Plateau state, there is no clinic, no midwife, and no immediate help.
By midday, her husband had left in search of a neighbour with a car — their only hope of reaching the nearest clinic in Vwak-Jol, a journey of 10 kilometres over rough, unpaved roads.
“He (referring to the neighbour) drove us to the clinic in Vwak but they said they couldn’t handle it,” she narrated. The clinic, a repurposed church, lacked the necessary equipment for complicated deliveries. The staff suggested they head for Vom Christian Hospital, a bigger facility another 30 kilometres away in nearby Jos South LGA.
The road to Vom stretched long and treacherous, the bumps on the path matching the mounting anxiety in the car. When they arrived, doctors assessed her and shook their heads. Vom Christian Hospital was not equipped for her case either. It was too late in the day to risk travelling the additional hour and a half to the Plateau State Specialist Hospital in Jos, the state capital. So Mrs Joseph, along with her husband and the neighbour who had become their chauffeur, had no choice but to return home and try again the next day.
She delivered the baby at the state specialist hospital the following morning but the baby did not survive.
“The doctors said the baby had suffered from exhaustion due to the prolonged labour,” she recounted with sadness.
Mrs Joseph, her husband and the neighbour had done everything they could, but the distance, the delays, and the lack of a functioning clinic close to home had stolen her child from her arms. Her story is not unique in Tan-Jol.
“Most times when a woman gets into labour, the family has to look for someone who has a bike or a car to be taken to the clinic in Vwak and when it’s in the night, the pregnant woman is taken to the house of a woman who owns a chemist in the community and in most cases she doesn’t accept it due to fear of complications that may occur and lead to death,” said Deborah Alfred, a resident in the community. “In situations like that, the woman and her family are left with no other choice than to go back and deliver at home and only pray for a safe delivery.” Mrs. Alfred added.
In Tan-Jol, where an unfinished and abandoned clinic stands as a stark symbol of neglect, countless women face the same harrowing journey when it’s time to give birth. Like Mrs Joseph, pregnant women, and their families, endure long, treacherous rides across kilometres of countryside in search of healthcare that should have been built within their community.
Often, it’s too late by the time they reach help. Mothers lose babies, and families lose mothers — all because a clinic that should have been completed over two decades ago remains a shell of a promise, crumbling and overtaken by weeds.
Built for their well-being, left to rot.
Work on the abandoned clinic, which started over 20 years ago by Emmanuel Jugu, a former member of the state House of Assembly, was supposed to serve as the community’s beacon of hope. The building was roofed in 2004, but work stopped, leaving it unfinished, a constant reminder of broken promises. Though the Plateau State government allocated ₦9.5 million in 2021 to complete the project under the supervision of the Plateau State Primary Health Care Development Agency, there is no sign of progress. A review of the state’s budgetary allocations since 2017 reveals that there has been no additional funding designated for the project.
The half-constructed building now stands as a monument to broken promises, its walls overtaken by weeds and part of its structure damaged by a farmer-herder crisis that occurred recently.
The village head, Dachung Gwong, laments that the absence of a functioning clinic puts everyone in the community at risk, especially women and children. With motorcycles as the main mode of transport, villagers face deadly risks travelling to distant healthcare centres, particularly at night, when insecurity is at its worst.
“Herders attacked and killed my son, his wife, and my granddaughter while they were returning from the clinic in Vwak,” recounted Laraba Choji, a local woman whose voice trembled with grief.
Mr Gwong said the community has reached out to local authorities on several occasions, pleading for the clinic to be completed, but their cries have gone unanswered.
“We want them to complete this clinic,” he said. “We can’t point to any dividend of democracy in this community, but we vote during elections—the ballot boxes get here,” Jugu Bulus, the spokesperson of the Tan-Jol Youth Council said. “Even a good water system like a borehole where we can get clean water from, we don’t have it (sic). We don’t even have a single primary school in this community.”
Local clinic overwhelmed
The closest health facility to Tan-Jol is the clinic at Vwak that couldn’t manage Grace Joseph’s labour earlier this year. It is not only under-equipped, the few staff who work there are also overwhelmed.
According to Doreen Ngwe, the Officer in Charge of the Vwak Primary Health Clinic, more than six nearby communities including Tan-Jol depend on the clinic. “We are also short-staffed at the moment, and it makes the work even more stressful,” she told UDEME. “Had it been there are more health facilities in the close communities it would have been better.”
Anytime there’s an outbreak of the farmers-herders crisis in the community, Mrs Ngwe and her staff are stuck between attending to the several casualties or fleeing for their safety. “It’s a struggle,” she adds.
Gov’t remains mum
The government’s silence is deafening. On September 2, UDEME submitted a Freedom of Information letter to the office of the executive secretary of the Plateau State Primary Health Care Development Agency in Jos, requesting for detailed information on the abandoned project. Despite multiple follow-up calls and messages to the office of the office secretary, there has been no meaningful response.
Two weeks after the letter was submitted, the office secretary confirmed that it was forwarded to the agency’s Director of Administration. However, subsequent inquiries about the delayed response were met with silence, as the office secretary ignored the request made via WhatsApp message.
This contravenes the FOI Act which requires any agency to respond within seven working days.
This story was produced and funded by UDEME, a social accountability initiative of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID)
