Everywhere I go, people call me doctor
World Health Day 2018 | @CAID_Nigeria
Last year, Bill Gates tweeted ‘the most beautiful chart in the world’. This chart showed the halving of under-five mortality between 1990 and 2015. That’s an incredible 122 million children’s lives saved.
In Nigeria, despite significant improvements country wide, child mortality rates remain high in remote regions. In Benue state, 128 children in every 1,000 die before the age of five. Three quarters of deaths are entirely preventable, but parents face daunting barriers in accessing healthcare. These delays can make the difference between life and death.
Mlumun’s story
For mothers like Mlumun, every cough, sneeze or high temperature can bring the worry that your child might not survive to see their fifth birthday. For Mlumun, taking her child to hospital isn’t a simple matter. It’s far away and depletes the money she saves for other essentials. As a farmer, land is life so time way from her fields affects her income and her ability to feed her family.
Today, Mlumun can rely on Hile, who can treat her three year old Terna in his home. Hile is one of our 900 newly trained community health volunteers and plays a vital role in offering Mlumun a solution to her problems.
Hile has a medicine box filled with supplies and treats around five children everyday. She can advise on the severity of Terna’s illness so the family only needs to make essential journeys to hospital.
Levi, another of our community health volunteers, works hard as a farmer and a student. But his health role is providing him new found respect among his community.
‘People in my community have changed my name to ‘Ortue’ — Doctor. Everywhere I go, they call me Ortue’.
Supported by our partners Jireh Doo Foundation and Ohonyeta Care Givers, these health workers are able to provide a free service to families, diagnosing and treating under fives for common but dangerous illnesses such as diarrhoea and malaria.
More than £2 million of UK Aid Match funding raised through our Christmas appeal in 2015, now supports our partner projects for Improved Child Health.
This project has trained more than 900 Community Health Volunteers across 130 remote communities in Benue State, Nigeria.
