By Chidi Nkwopara, Owerri
The coming of Christianity to Igboland has severally been hailed by commentators for the positive changes it brought into the communities. Christian missionaries established schools, hospitals, orphanages and other facilities that helped to improve the well being of the people.

This was the spirit that led to the founding of the famous Inyienu Hospital by the Anglican Diocese on the Niger about 100 years ago. This hospital grew in leaps and bounds. People travelled far distances to access the health facility.

Our Saviour’s Hospital and Maternity, Amainyi...begging for attention

With time, the Church Missionary Society (CMS), as it was then known, felt the need to establish another health post towards the Imo River boundary of the diocese. A group of missionaries were sent to survey and locate the possible site for the building of a maternity home that would serve the needs of pregnant mothers, who were traveling to distant places to have their babies.

One of the criteria for locating the proposed maternity home was the presence of a stream to serve the water needs of patients. Vanguard Metro gathered that because of the presence of Nwogba Stream, very close to the present site of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Amainyi, the leadership of the Diocese on the Niger sited the Amainyi Maternity Home in 1937, at the present site of Our Saviour’s Hospital Maternity. The structures were built with mud and plastered with cement!

With the creation of Owerri Diocese, Amainyi Maternity Home was inherited by the new diocese in 1959. It was subsequently inherited by Okigwe/Orlu Diocese in 1984. Prior to this date, the once famous Amainyi Maternity Home, which used to be the birth place of most eminent sons and daughters of Igboland started suffering serious setback as a result of lack of care and maintenance of the infrastructure, staff and equipment.

When the Anglican Diocese of Okigwe South was created in 1984, the picture of the Maternity Home was that of a dilapidated and abandoned ancient health post. The staff strength was a midwife, a ward attendant and two security men. They were equally abandoned and left to rot like the buildings and equipment.

Vanguard Metro took time off during the 2010 Christmas break to speak to the Anglican Bishop of Okigwe South Diocese, Rt. Rev. David O. C. Onuoha, on the fate of the health facility. He had this story to tell:

“On the 13th year of the creation of the Diocese of Okigwe South and on the third year of my consecration and enthronement, I paid a pastoral visit to the health institution. What I saw was humiliating, indeed pathetic,” Bishop Onuoha said.

He lamented the poor state of the establishment, adding that “posterity will not forgive us if we fail to do something now to save this ancient monument, which saved the souls of many a citizen”.

Continuing, Bishop Onuoha said: “Guided by the restoration principle, I started mobilizing the entire diocese towards giving the Maternity a facelift, as well as upgrading it to a hospital. I also took over the payment of the staff salary from 2006, a move which added smiles on the faces of these people that were once abandoned”.

On Wednesday, May 30, 2007, Bishop Onuoha inaugurated a four-man works committee to supervise the structural work of the new Our Saviour’s Hospital and Maternity, Amainyi. He also approved the construction of a building that will house four main wards, namely: Paediatric Ward, Maternity Ward, Female Ward and Male Ward. Provisions were made for the Casualty Department and four self-contained private rooms.

“Since the past three years, the Diocese has committed over N30 million to bring the project to where it is now. We still need about N10 million to finish the structural works of the first phase. The hospital’s management board is also sourcing for modern hospital equipment for the medical establishment,” Onuoha said.

He therefore called on all sons, daughters, friends and well wishers of the Diocese to come to their assistance, especially as he maintained that so far, there has never been any fund raising for the hospital project.

“Money realised from the Bishop’s presidential addresses and contributions by Okigwe South brethren in the United States of America have been the only sources.

Those born in the hospital before it became comatose are challenged to immortalize the names of their parents by sponsoring the building of a ward, theatre or any aspect of the hospital project. Any such structure will bear their names in perpetuity,” Bishop Onuoha promised.

By so doing, he told Vanguard Metro,  the labour of our heroes past would not be in vain.