By Chidi Nkwopara

It may sound like a tale from fantasy that a community cannot boast of a functional Primary Health Care Centre in this day and age.

Okuku community in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, is such a place that has suffered this lack for decades.

A semblance of a health centre was established close to Ekeiwu Market Square, after a long and humiliating cry, but this popped up a new problem.

The place was completely isolated and faced serious security challenge. No medical or para-medical personnel wanted to risk working in the place on night shift.

The climax was when a team from the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, visited the supposed health centre and not satisfied with what they saw, the team threatened to summarily close the place, for several reasons.

The search for a new permanent site began. This was how the former Woman Leader of Udodiri Okuku Women Association, Mrs. Ibe Josephine Chinwe and Dr. Jane Favour Chukwukere, approached Chief Moses Eke Ibe, for assistance and he quickly keyed into their project.

At the handover ceremony, people became emotional as Chief Ibe, gave a graphic account of why he opted to save mother and child from premature and avoidable death.

January 16, 2024, was therefore, a very special day for the entire community, as it not only marked the crystalization and manifestation of the people’s desire to own a health centre, but it was also a fulfillment of Chief Ibe’s childhood dream and vision!

Ibe had this to say: ”As a growing child, I was inspired and motivated to build a Primary Health Centre like this one we are commissioning, because of a near-death experience I faced. I saw my mother suffer excruciating pain at childbirth, without being taken to a medical facility or given the needed and immediate attention her condition yearned for.

“The closest medical attention and/or practice we experienced in those days, in this community, was the one offered by an itinerary patent medicine dispenser, who usually came from a neighbouring Agwa community, to dispense medicine in my town.

“At a point and for reasons we didn’t know, this man stopped coming for almost a year. I became very ill within this period of his absence. Like in my mother’s case, there was no health centre to give me medical attention.

“Our only and nearest remedy was this patent medicine dispenser. When he stopped coming for about a year, the only other option open to my poor and struggling parents, was the Owerri General Hospital. The expected bill was expectedly high and my parents could not afford to pay whatever it was going to be.

“I can vivid recall how my mother wept helplessly, as her lovely son was gradually slipping through her hands. I can also recall how, with pain in her eyes and heart, she muttered words that revealed that she had lost hope that I would live!

“Like the good mother she was, she kept faith, resorted to prayers and kept trying all options open to her. Then, from nowhere, the itinerary patent medicine dispenser resurfaced.

“This time, the dispenser was looking very pale and old. Grey hair had taken over his entire head. My mother quickly consulted him and he dispensed some drugs to me.

“One of the drugs he administered to me was B-Complex. Its taste and smell betrayed the prescription. This memory has stuck in my heart till date. That man turned out to be the first destiny helper I came across. It was the last time this dispenser ever came to our community. However, I got well.

Again there was this other ugly story. I saw a woman, Alaoma Aejuo from Umueze, Mgbolo, Okuku, experience pains of childbirth. It was her first pregnancy. My mother survived but the young lady died in the process.

“With these memories, I was motivated, at an early stage, to build a health centre, if blessed and given the grace by God to do so.

“I became strongly committed to ensuring that never again will a child in this community have to wait for an itinerary patent medicine dispenser and his likes, to get medical attention.

“Never again will a woman go through the pains of childbirth, like my mother did, without medical attention and never again will a young pregnant woman die as a result of lack of medical facility in this community.

“The power of life and death lies with Almighty God but the little we can do to ease the pains of life that we must do.”

He then called on all Okuku indigenes, home or in diaspora, to lend a helping hand to build and develop their community as nobody will do that for us.

His words: “I hereby donate this Primary Health Care Centre to the Okuku Community as my little contribution to mankind and to the glory of God.”

The royal father, Eze Paul Unwunwa and the President General of the community, Comrade Martin Ike Daniel, commended the donor for his magnanimity.