Osogbo: Thinking of the aged

Effort are on in Osogbo to bring some joy and love into the daily life of elderly citizens.

In Osogbo, a lady has taken it upon herself to pursue the noble task of looking after the aged. Mrs. Fehitola Toyin Obilomo is the Chair of Caring Hands International, and she was busy moving up and down to ensure that the aged people who thronged the venue for the October 1st programme, organised by her NGO, were attended to, without a hitch.

Certainly, caring for others, especially the aged, is an attitude Mrs Obilomo had grown up with. She recalled: “My dad was an auditor in the old Western Region. He died when he was just around 50. We grew up living with many people in our house. There were many people whom my parents were supporting. My parents had five biological children, but there was never a time the children in the house were fewer than 13. I grew up in that environment.

We grew up to love.” She was determined to emulate her late father, but initially she was not really sure of which category of people she should care for, and she was just assisting people randomly. However, a particular dramatic encounter she had with an old man gave her the direction.

She said: “My husband and I were looking for a building to rent and we went to somewhere known as Ayetoro in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. At Ayetoro, we saw a building and discovered that it was vacant. We were told that the man who owned the building was living in the next compound. When we met him, his environment was tidy and comfortable.

The house was well furnished and from the look of the place, we knew that the man was not a poor man. Later on, we got to know that the man was highly educated, judging from his spoken English. He was receptive to us, apparently looking for someone to talk with.

We did not see anybody around him for the 20 minutes we spent with him. Then, we asked him the whereabouts of his wife, he said his wife had passed on. “The 90-year-old was being catered for by a woman whom his children had employed for their aged father.

The woman would give him breakfast, clean the house and make sure that the old man had his bath. From the way the environment looked that morning, the woman that took care of the old man had already visited. But for his lunch and dinner, he depended on those who hawked bread or pap with beans cake. Meanwhile, the old man found it difficult to get down from his one-storey building.

The man had found a way round his problem. Rather than remain at the mercy of anyone, he got an empty paint bucket in which he tied a rope and he would just lower it down from the balcony of his upper floor apartment. He would lower the paint bucket down with money in it, and a hawker would put whatever food Baba desired in the bucket. And if there was a balance he wanted to collect, Baba would get his balance through the same method.

Having discovered the ordeal of the 90-year-old man, I became really touched and thought that if something like that could happen to an individual who was rich and comfortable, then something worse would be happening to those who have nobody to care for them.” Having discovered that many of the elderly people suffer from loneliness, Obilomo structured her NGO to care for the elderly.

So, the plight of the elderly became the genesis of Caring Hearts International. The first time I went to the UK, I was surprised with the way elderly people are being taken care of there. Even in public transport there is a space that is reserved for the elderly ones.

The elderly are also given money to sustain themselves, and when they are sick, they receive free health care. The government in that country planned for this, and I believe we can do the same in Nigeria, because Nigeria is not a poor country except that we do not prioritise our needs.

Fortunately, life itself had prepared Obilomo for this task. She had previously worked as a senior nurse and social worker. “I am a nurse by profession. My first degree is in nursing, but I had an MSA in social work too. That means I can feature well in services being rendered to human beings.

I know much about relationships, and any condition you can think of about human beings, because of the field that I majored in. Apart from that, I am married to an engineer, Engr. Ayo Obilomo, and we are blessed with four children, three boys and a girl. After working for about 30 years, I retired in 2009. Before then, I had started this NGO.

“We also have a counselling unit. We call the elderly people very often and ask what is bothering them. Most of the time, we find out that the source of their worry is when any of their children is having a problem.

This is common among the women. Some of them embark on long fasting and prayer because of their children, and the fasting affects their health. For some of them, you would not find it funny the way they would behave, but I have found a way of tolerating them, especially when they are suffering from dementia,which is a situation where an individual starts losing memory.

It is a kind of psychiatric problem. We bring in doctors, psychiatric doctors, to come and talk to them on the issue. If it is a nutrition problem, we bring in an expert in nutrition to speak. Also, we have some old people who are rich and have assets. We invite legal experts to talk to them about Wills.

As beautiful as the initiative is, Obilomo does not receive funding from any quarter, and she has been mainly financing the programmes herself. Her effort, she said, is apart from the money contributed by her few friends or sourced for by the board of trustees, for the project.

“I just believe it is a vision given to us. One thing is that even before we started the NGO, we had seen in our family that it is not difficult to help others. We believe in sharing. My husband is a reverend in ECWA Church. From the beginning, when we got married, we saw that it was very easy for us to give out and assist people. So, it has not been a problem to us.

If we have, we give, and that has sustained us. It has not been a case of I’m spending too much and I’ve not been receiving anything. We are not waiting to receive anything really. What makes us to continue the programme is that we look at the elderly ones, and the way they appreciate what we are doing.” Obilomo believes that government policies should favour the aged people. She said there must be a way to help the elderly, so they could enjoy their old age, rather than endure it.

“We have seen that most of them are enduring their old age, they are not enjoying it at all. Unfortunately, it is like our government doesn’t really have anything in store for the elderly people. There should be a policy for the elderly people in the country. Even countries that are not as endowed as Nigeria, have some policies supporting the elderly ones. So, the government should have something in place for the elderly. Although, some state governments have one programme or the other, but I feel it’s not sufficient for these people.

They need something that is regular, a structure that is in place for the care of the elderly. When somebody ages, all the body systems also age, and alongside this come various diseases. So, they need a lot of help and that’s what CHI is doing. We have some monthly programmes, and we have bi-monthly programmes, and it’s one of those programmes we are running today.”

Obilomo said one of the annual programmes which will hold very soon will deal with health of the eyes. She said the programme will involve eye test and screening exercise. “Their eyes are screened so that they would be able to access immediate care, because if care is not taken, some of them may lose their eyes, and we don’t want that to happen. Apart from that, we run a hepatitis B virus test for them. Hepatitis B virus is an infection of the liver. Most time, it’s not known, and when it is known, it is often very late.

So, we feel that instead of the people to fall sick and be subjected to investigations, only to discover that a person has the virus, it is better to screen that person, detect it on time and place them on treatment.”