To save lives of children in Nigeria, Africa and this facility will be open to other children in all of Africa. Many children in Nigeria and many other parts of Africa die unnecessarily before reaching the age of adolescence. These children die because of lack of care, especially lack of good healthcare. Diseases such as Malaria, Cholera, Diarrhea, Typhoid, and many other serious diseases which are often endemic in tropical Africa, claim the lives of many of these children before their 10th birthday.
This appalling situation is due to many factors:
1. Poverty: Nigeria is a wealthy country, the 5th largest oil producer in the world. But due to the acute corruption that is so rampant in the country many of the ordinary people live in abject poverty. As a result the children from these families are woefully malnourished; consequently, they fall easy preys to diseases. Their bodies cannot resist such diseases.
2. There are no hospitals exclusively for the healthcare of children in most countries in Africa, including Nigeria and other countries in West Africa. The few, mostly ill-equipped hospitals in these countries, generally have a single ward in some of the hospitals for children, or have no wards at all for children. Children are often treated as adult patients. As a result, many of the sick children fail to respond well to treatments.
3. Most Hospitals (even general hospitals) are often too far from children. Before a sick child can be rushed to the nearest hospital or clinic, it is already too late. There are no ambulance services in many of the African countries; roads are often very poor; all these terrible conditions increase the rate of infant mortality in these countries.
4. Medicines are often in very short supply. Much of the medicines that may be available are hardly for children. Inappropriate medications often contribute in a large measure to the death of children in these African countries.
5. Qualified healthcare specialists are too few in most of the African countries; especially those specialized in the children’s healthcare. As a result, when sick children are lucky to reach any hospitals, they often treated by healthcare providers unqualified to treat children.
