By Donu Kogbara
ST Vincent’s Clinic/Maternity in Kubwa, Abuja, is run by Catholic nuns – the Daughters of Charity. The essential work these selfless reverend sisters are doing is under threat because the building they occupy is due to be demolished to make way for a light railway line.

The Daughters of Charity came into the Archdiocese of Abuja exactly 16 years ago – in May 1996 – and immediately started to provide free mobile services to occupants of remote villages who could not access or afford healthcare.

In addition to immunizing children and pregnant women, they dished out free food to the hungry. And when impressed local chiefs asked them to establish a more comprehensive facility plus jobs for the unemployed, the nuns gladly complied and have gone from strength to strength. The Hospital they built was built with Government approval and its staff have not violated any rules or broken any laws and are developing an HIV Recourses Enhancement Against Aids and Malnutrition programme in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health.

So can someone please tell me why Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Ministers have been coldly ignoring numerous entreaties from these resourceful philanthropists and their many advocates since 2008? Letter after letter has been written to no avail. The Daughters of Charity are not opposed to the rail line. They just want fair treatment as well as an acknowledgement that their contribution to society is important. And they have, for over four years, been begging FCT to assist them in either of the following ways:

a) by building another hospital for them before the existing structure is bulldozed, so they can transfer to a new location without disrupting their services to the sick or

b) by providing them with another plot of land, adequate compensation and sufficient time, so they can build another hospital for themselves before the existing structure is bulldozed.

In a normal country, such reasonable requests from such dedicated servants of God and mankind would be taken seriously. But this is Nigeria, a country in which it is easier for bad people to thrive than for good people to be appreciated and encouraged!

Let me also sorrowfully note that most of our leaders are, despite paying lip service to poverty alleviation initiatives, not sincerely interested in the welfare of the poor, even though many of them came from extremely poor backgrounds and should therefore feel especially sympathetic towards those they left behind at the bottom of the ladder.

The Daughters of Charity have hitherto been largely supported by foreign individuals and organisations such as ambassadors’ wives, the Irish Government and Julius Berger and it would be nice if we Nigerians could make more of an effort to encourage these wonderful women.

An expatriate whose company has funded some of the nuns’activities told me that: “It is devastating to see the authorities’complete lack of interest in the imminent demolition of Kubwa Hospital, which is a very rare example of a bona fide organisation delivering services to the poor, using every donation with transparent accountability.

“The Nigerian nuns are superb healthcare professionals and the willingness of international organisations to help in the development of this project over the years has been due to their excellent reputation and sound allocation of resources.”

When I spoke to Sister Brenda, who heads the disabled children’s unit, she said that her main worry is their patients – 77,771 at the last count – who will suffer. Many are critically ill. One wonders why the Daughters of Charity’s pleas have fallen on deaf ears and why no information about the proposed demolition date has been forthcoming.

The nuns are hurt by this silence and have no idea how much time they have left. All they know is that a positive intervention from the FCT Minister will be warmly welcomed.

Mobile police were recently deployed to the site, so it’s possible that the axe will soon fall. I will be monitoring the situation closely and will let you know what happens. Watch this space and text me if you want to make a donation to the Daughters of Charity.

Stop breeding!

I AM sure the Daughters of Charity share the Pope’s view that contraception is sinful and will be appalled by this segment of today’s column.

Even though I was born a Catholic and will always try to live like one, I find it impossible to agree with the Vatican’s stance on birth control.

I believe that people should not have big families, even when they are rich, partly because the world is overpopulated and partly because it is very difficult to be an attentive parent when your attentions have to be thinly spread. And I was very irritated when I read, in recent newspaper reports, that the Government is not ready to nag Nigerian women to have fewer children.

Our birth rate per woman is 5.7. Britain’s, meanwhile, is less than 2. Imagine a situation in which relatively wealthy women in the West are having much fewer children than financially challenged women in Africa! It doesn’t make sense.

According to the Minister of State for Health, Mohammed Ali Pate (who has an overly relaxed attitude towards reproduction issues, in my opinion), “Africa’s population is about one billion now and will be two billion by 2015…”

How on earth are all these extra mouths going to be fed on a continent that is not exactly famed for handling economic challenges efficiently and ethically?