WHO supports NHF in treating 100 Borno IDP patients

World Health Organisation (WHO) is supporting the National Humanitarian Fund (NHF) in the treatment of 100 internally-displaced persons (IDP) in camps and host communities of Borno State.

The treated patients were from Maiduguri Metropolitan, Gwoza, and Monguno councils.This was disclosed on Thursday in WHO’s weekly report released to journalists in Maiduguri, the state capital.

“WHO-NHF is one of the funding mechanisms that aim at providing essential secondary and tertiary healthcare services to conflict-affected people in Borno, by strengthening referral mechanisms and medical evacuation of patients/persons injured from primary to secondary level of healthcare,” said the report.

Through the intervention, WHO has also paid for treatment of referred patients at various hospitals, it added.Officer in charge of the global health agency in Nigeria, Dr. Clement Peter, said the beneficiaries were receiving needed secondary care promptly, to reduce excess morbidity and mortality as well as prevent disabilities.

According to him, this will also contribute to the overall health and wellbeing of IDPs affected by the current conflict and displacement in the North East. Bukar Mustapha, 60, who had been living with appendicitis for the past four years in Teachers’ Village IDP, said: “I had always catered for myself and family despite my health challenges until I became internally-displaced.

“As an IDP for over four years, to wish for anything beyond daily bread is like asking for the impossible.“It still sounds like a dream that I was picked up in an ambulance, brought to this specialist hospital and had an appendectomy at no cost to me.”Similarly, following an attack on his village in Gwoza, Mohammed Mustapha, 34, had lived with a chronic leg ulcer in Bakassi IDP camp since February 2018.

“Although, I have survived this leg ulcer for three years, my situation deteriorated since I became internally-displaced. I lost my
job and could no longer afford to pay for my medications,” he said while thanking the state government and WHO for the free treatment.Dr. Peter said that NHF was also supporting WHO in strengthening diseases surveillance and outbreak response.The fund is managed by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) to support life-saving humanitarian recovery operations in Nigeria.