By Manoah Kikekon
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| Gberefu PHC |
On the historic island of Gberefu, where slave ships once departed for the Americas through the infamous "Point of No Return," a different kind of tragedy is unfolding today. The Gberefu Primary Health Centre (PHC), built to serve over 50,000 residents, now stands as a hollow shell its gates torn off, its roof stripped bare, its wards home to bats and rodents. For the pregnant women of this riverine community, the collapse of this facility has turned childbirth into a gamble with death.
Gberefu PHC was commissioned in 2012 by the late Local Government Chairman, Moses Hosintode. Within five or six years, it had ceased to function. Today, nothing remains of the facility that once promised care to four communities Gberefu, Yovoyan, and Ayetowo among them.
When this reporter visited the centre, the extent of the decay was stark: the main gate gone, the entrance door removed, sections of the roof stripped away, and every piece of equipment and every bed carted off. The only structure still standing, aside from the crumbling building itself, is the rusted, empty shell of a 400-capacity power generator a hollow monument to what the centre used to be.
Residents say a nurse still come there on Mondays and Tuesdays, though no one seems to know what she comes there to do.
"I took my son there for immunisation while he was small that was about nine years ago," said Ruka Hungbo, a resident.
"Meanwhile, with the dilapidated condition, there's this particular nurse that comes there on Mondays and Tuesdays. What she comes there to do, I don't know, because she can't even sit inside you see her just walking around the community."
Giving Birth on the Jetty
For pregnant women in Badagry's riverine communities, the absence of a functioning PHC means every delivery is a logistical crisis. Reaching the Badagry General Hospital requires crossing water by boat, then finding a motorbike on the other side arrangements that must often be made in advance, before labour even begins.
"It has not been easy for pregnant women to access healthcare in Badagry town," Hungbo explained.
"Going to Badagry to give birth means arranging with a boatman and a bike man ahead of the due date. Time without number, women have given birth on that Gberefu Jetty while waiting to get a boat to cross over. At times, even when they manage to get a boat, getting a bike is another challenge. All of this is why women now resort to traditional birth attendants."
Gberefu PHC was designed as a non-flagship comprehensive health post meant to operate eight hours a day without a doctor, across two shifts, morning and afternoon. Even that modest mandate has gone unmet for years.
"What If Yoyo Wasn't Reachable That Night?"
Abiodun Homafa, a tour guide on Gberefu Island, recalled a night three months ago when a woman went into labour at about 2 a.m. With the PHC non-functional, the only option was to call on a boat driver known as Yoyo to ferry her across the water before she could reach a hospital.
"What if Yoyo wasn't reachable that night, or his boat wasn't available?" Homafa asked. "The mother or the baby may not be alive by now."
He added that many families no longer bother trying. "Since the people know the place is not functional, they rather take the risk of the child at home with the local midwives because of the high probability that they would not get a boat to cross at the time of labour."
Mr. Saheed Ahmed, a Community Health Extension Worker who once carried out routine immunisation at the facility, said the breakdown in trust ran both ways. "The health workers complained that people were not coming to the centre, but the women said anytime they visit the centre, the nurses were never around," he said.
"The women also complained that the nurses don't stay in the facility at night, and that they are scared of coming there and not meeting anyone if they go into labour at night. This made them not bother going there at all when they go into labour."
"We Have Tried, But We Are Yet to Get Responses"
Chief Hungbo Semande, the Baale of Gberefu, said the community has done what it can, with little to show for it.
"The facility has been abandoned for years. There's little we can do as a community — we have tried our efforts, but we are yet to get responses," he said.
"I was told some months ago that the local government is coming, but up to this moment, we have not seen anyone. The excuse for the abandonment was that the people were not patronising the PHC. We hope the government remembers that place one day."
"Our Pregnant Women and Children Are Dying"
The human cost of the PHC's collapse is not speculative. A 2024 report by PUNCH Healthwise quoted Chief Kotopa Komi, then Regent of Gberefu Community, describing the toll directly.
"Not having a functional PHC has caused us preventable deaths," Komi said. "My people don't have any hospital around to go to when there is an emergency. Even pregnant women don't attend antenatal here they make use of traditional birth attendants. They also can't go to Badagry for antenatal because of lack of money and the distance. Our pregnant women and babies are dying. Women here usually lose their pregnancies."
That same report documented the death of 33-year-old Bukola Aiyeolowo and her newborn, who died after complications during labour that traditional birth attendants were unequipped to handle. Aiyeolowo, a mother of two, went into labour at night; by the time a nurse could be summoned, it was too late.
Resident Tanimola Ogunbiyi, who witnessed the events, recounted the tragedy. "The baby was the first to die in the womb. As soon as the baby died, Aiyeolowo started coughing and eventually gave birth. She died afterwards. This is what we experience in this community," she said.
An Emergency Boat: A Stopgap, Not a Solution
Pending any real intervention, one short-term measure could save lives immediately: an emergency boat service on standby, dedicated to ferrying residents across the water the moment a medical emergency particularly labour arises. It would not fix the underlying collapse of the health system, but it could buy the minutes that currently cost mothers and babies their lives.
Not an Isolated Case
Gberefu is not alone. The Iragbo/Iragon, Mowo, and Ibereko Primary Health Centres remain technically open but are barely functioning stripped of the basic equipment needed to treat a single patient, let alone handle an emergency. Nurses who visit two or three times a week share their wards with snakes, a consequence of the overgrown bush surrounding the buildings.
Chief Thomas Agosu, the Baale of Iragbo, said community efforts to maintain the facility broke down once its grounds were quietly repurposed. "Before now, Iragbo and Iragon usually came together to clear the premises of the PHC, but after some time we realised someone was using the premises for farming, so we had to stop," he said.
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| Iragbo/Iragon PHC |
"They are complaining that people are not coming to use the facility, but there's no equipment there. I can't even take my family there, as the Baale."
Further findings revealed that Iragbo/Iragon PHC has no electricity, no water, no drugs, no beds, and lacks even the most basic supplies gloves, nose masks, weighing scales.
Ahmed described a similar picture at Ibereko. "As we speak, the Ibereko PHC lacks electrification, no water, no drugs the basic equipment needed for a PHC to function is not there. All this is why people don't use the place, and this really discourages the nurses too."
A health attendant at Mowo PHC, speaking on condition of anonymity, painted an equally bleak picture. "You can see how bushy the premises is. Most times we share our office with snakes there's no sustainable plan by the local government to keep the place clean," she said.
"If you enter the wards, you'll be shocked at what you'll see. We don't have most of the basic emergency equipment at times I have to buy them with my own money." She declined to allow photographs of the wards, saying she feared repercussions for speaking to journalists.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the antenatal period offers a critical window to deliver interventions vital to the health of both mother and child. "Receiving antenatal care at least four times increases the likelihood of receiving effective maternal health interventions during the antenatal period," the agency states.
For that care to happen at all, a functioning PHC needs, at minimum:
Diagnostic tools: Stethoscopes and blood pressure monitors, thermometers, pulse oximeters, penlights and otoscopes, and weighing scales for adults and infants.
Treatment and procedure supplies: Examination tables and adjustable lighting, wound-care items such as gauze and bandages, basic surgical instruments, syringes and needles, and nebulizers for respiratory distress.
Emergency and delivery equipment: Oxygen cylinders or concentrators, defibrillators, childbirth kits and clean labour beds, and stretchers for transporting patients.
None of this exists in any meaningful quantity at, Iragbo/Iragon PHC, Mowo PHC, or Ibereko PHC today.