Cameroon,EU investment wasting in Bakassi

A health facility constructed by Cameroon's military engineering corps, in partnership with the European Union, EU, to step up access to health services in Idabato in the Bakassi Peninsula stands wasting.

Constructed within the framework of micro projects in the Lake Chad Zones and the Bakassi Peninsula, the building looks underutilised.
The facility, known as the Idabato Integrated Health Centre, remains rarely functional.

Though standing tall as one of Government’s efforts to modernise the area and improve on the well-being of the population, human response to the facility appears negative.

The health centre looks like something contrary, except for the writing on the wall. Some of the rooms in the health centre are instead filled with benches packed right up to the ceiling level.

Visibly implanted in the midst of locally constructed houses, the surrounding of the facility tells the near absence of human presence.

In a fact-finding mission by The Post, most of the local inhabitants seem to have given a blind eye to the facility, except when it comes to some specific vaccination campaigns.

Though none of the locals The Post approached was able to identify the reason for the general neglect of the facility, it came out clear that, in Bakassi, women still deliver their children in the comfort of their homes.

One of the locals, Emilia Ofor, said there was nothing hindering the frequent use of the facility by the population, but maintained that, before such facilities came into place, the people of Bakassi had a way of surviving.

Ekange Etongo,1st Deputy Mayor of Idabato, told reporters that the challenge was being handled gradually. Ekange admitted the issue of women still giving birth at home but stated that the council was already in the process of creating awareness on the need to use the health facility.

The deputy municipal magistrate said the challenge could be partly attributed to the history of the people,whereby, most of their children were delivered by traditional midwives at home.

Ekange, nevertheless, remained optimistic that things will change in the near future, given that the people must have gained interest in the facility and its advantages over their traditional way of doing things.

He disclosed that there is a medical staff assigned to the facility but The Post was unable to confirm the regular presence of the health staff in the area.
On his part, the Mayor of Idabato, who doubles as the Chairman of the Management Board of the health facility, Oliver Ntimi Akan, told reporters that health was not his domain.

Akan said health officials are best placed to talk on the current situation because, as Mayor, he is merely playing an administrative role.
“I sensitise the people, except they still have some hidden agenda,” Akan quipped.