Flooded communities are struggling to have access to healthcare services in rural areas, leading to protracted illnesses and untimely deaths.
Dataphyte visited Kofawe Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Ondo State to investigate the state of services and facilities. One official, Ms Omobimpe Oladunjoye, who was the only person working at the health centre, narrated how floods destroyed the PHC which serves about 15,000 persons in the community.
She explained that the 2022 flooding made the health centre inaccessible, leaving many pregnant women, old people and children unable to access healthcare.
Omobimpe however said before the flooding, she had obtained the support of volunteers who assisted in the day-to-day operations of the PHC.
But when flooding came, it made access to the facility difficult.
On one occasion, she said, a woman who was about to be delivered of a baby was carried through the floods in the middle of the night to the health centre.
Situations like this, she said, had forced many women in the Kofawe area to rely on traditional birth attendants, putting their lives at risk.
She expressed pain that no intervention came from any quarters to mitigate the impact of the 2022 floods in order to assist residents relying on the healthcare facility.
Several states at risk
The situation is not peculiar to Kofawe community or Ondo State. In Kogi, the state government had lamented that 92 health centres were affected by the 2022 floods. These facilities were said to be either partially or fully destroyed.
In Anambra State, the 2022 floods had destroyed several PHCs. It took the intervention of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to rehabilitate them this year.
Earlier in 2016, floods had sacked Igbogbo Public Health Care Centre, along Bola Ahmed Tinubu Road in Agbele in Igbogbo/ Bayeku Local Council Development Area, making access to healthcare difficult for vulnerable residents.
It was reported that Bayelsa and Delta communities faced a health crisis due to flooding in 2022.
A climate change expert, Ms Roseline Deko, explained that Nigerian states were still not paying attention to effects of climate change on vulnerable communities, urging governors to pay serious attention to floods this year to minimise their impacts.“It is not only about funding, but precautions need to be taken to forestall untold hardship and deaths. There is a need to take climate change issues as seriously as we take disease outbreaks,” she added.
Lack of readiness
States are not ready for the 2023 floods, according to findings.
A Dataphyte report had noted that between 2021 and 2022, Kogi State had only a 3.8 percent budget performance for its flood and erosion control.
Another report noted that 29 states were not ready for the 2023 flooding.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had noted that there would be more floods in 2023.
Data sourced from the Dataphyte’s Climate Data Centre show that many states are prone to high levels of flooding.
A climate change advocate, Mr Dare Akogun, told Dataphyte that there was an urgent need for states to show more readiness to tackle flooding.
He questioned the willingness and readiness of states to mitigate the impacts of the imminent flooding.
Director of Waterwide, a company focused on access to water, Mr Wilson Atumeyi, lamented that despite several billions of naira received by states as ecological funds, accountability was still a major issue.
He called for the involvement of critical stakeholders in executing projects that would help in tackling flooding, noting that the involvement of CSOs would entrench transparency in the entire process. He further said that there should be constant audit of expenditures dedicated to supporting critical infrastructures affected by flooding.
“The states have little to show for the N64 billion they got from the Federal Government to help them tackle flooding” he noted.
He urged urgent action to ensure that people were not left to suffer from flooding effects this year.
This report was produced in fulfilment of the UNESCO & CIJ London Climate Change in News Media Project facilitated by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development.