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Measles Kill 18 Children in Idu Motherless Babies Home

Daily Trust (Abuja)

May 13, 2003
Posted to the web May 14, 2003

Ikenna Emeka Okpani
 

A total of 18 motherless babies lost their lives to measles at the Victory Motherless Babies Home in Idu Karmo last year.

The Matron of the home, Mrs. Peace Kanu who represented the proprietress Mrs. E. C. Ibe told members of the Health and Good Society (HAGS) foundation who were at the home to make donations that the children died due to overcrowding.

According to her, the home has not been able to expand due to failure of several attempts made to attract government assistance despite the registration of the home with the Corporate Affairs Commission.

Mrs. Kanu said running the home has become quite demanding, as the motherless babies have to be fed, treated when ill and catered for apart from staff salaries which must be paid.

She thanked members of the foundation for the donations noting that the home has been surviving on the goodwill of many well meaning and philanthropic Nigerians.

In his response, the founder and president of the foundation, Dr. Chijioke Mbelu advised operators of the home to establish a better working relationship with the authorities observing that such will make their work easier.

He promised to raise the problems of the home with the authorities and regretted the out break of measles in the home, which led to the death of the 18 children.

The HAGS foundation also visited patients at the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital and indigent patients at the National Hospital. It also visited the Abuja children's home at Karu.

In all the venues, materials ranging from pharmaceuticals such as antimalarial drugs, surgical materials, antacid etc were presented to the pharmacy departments of Gwagwalada Special Hospital and National hospital.

At the homes, bags of rice, salt, detergents, garri, buckets, plates, spoons, cups and footballs were presented.

The visit and donations, Abuja Trust gathered, was the first of the kind by the foundation set up 4 months ago.