AHIARA DIOCESE CRISIS: THE UNTOLD STORIES…23

Explosion of Initiatives … [iv] [UPDATED]

The most instantly impactful initiative of Bishop Chikwe in the early days of Ahiara Diocese was perhaps in the area of healthcare delivery. The new diocese had practically nothing along the line of a healthcare delivery infrastructure. There were no hospitals and nothing that could easily be transformed into a dependable one in the new diocese. There were only about three Maternity Homes built by the missionaries in the 1940s and 50s. These were located in Amumara Ezinihitte, Umuokrika Ekwerazu and Ogbor Nguru.

In fact, the three Maternity Homes would serve as the sum total of the healthcare delivery facilities available in the new diocese. The situation was dire if not completely pathetic. The challenge to the new diocese and her new bishop in the area of healthcare delivery appeared insurmountable. But Bishop Chikwe was a different kettle of fish who seemed always unfazed in the face of challenges.

[Rev. Fr Prof. Emmanuel Nwaoru has called my attention to the fact that Divine Love Hospital, Amuzu Mbaise, whose erection in the Amuzu community of Mbaise was facilitated by an illustrious daughter of Mbaise, Mother Angela Uwalaka of blessed memory, former Superior General of Daughters of Divine Love Congregation, had in fact begun limited operation in Mbaise land a year or two before the creation of Ahiara Diocese. I accept the professor's correction with lots of gratitude].

Since the missionaries left the shores of the Igbo heartland area in early 1970, there had been practically no development in the healthcare delivery apparatus throughout the area that would constitute the new diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise. The legacy of the missionaries in healthcare delivery in Mbaise zone had completely been lost. The entire area with a population of more than half a million people had depended completely for her healthcare needs on a few church maternity homes, private doctors’ clinics, inefficient government-owned primary healthcare centres and a General Hospital that was as alive as most other comatose government institutions throughout Nigeria. The situation was embarrassingly pathetic.

In the pre-civil war days when the Irish missionaries were still around, Mbaise zone had a big and a very efficient hospital which the Catholic Church was managing conjointly with the Provincial civil government. It was called Mbaise Joint Hospital, Aboh. But immediately the missionaries were expelled, the military government pounced and seized the hospital. It renamed it Aboh Mbaise General Hospital thereby removing the Catholic element in its management. And immediately the government seized control of the once vibrant Mbaise Joint Hospital, its whole health delivery apparatus disappeared and its efficiency collapsed. The hospital that was once the pride of Mbaise land and a great vanguard in healthcare delivery throughout the whole area lost her way completely and soon became a mere shadow of what it used to be before the civil war.

For the sake of fairness, it was alleged that some prominent Mbaise citizens had demanded and even facilitated the government takeover of Mbaise Joint Hospital Aboh. It was claimed that Mbaise protagonists of the takeover had the belief that a government-run General Hospital in Mbaise would bring more value to Mbaise people. However, it is also on record that many other Mbaise citizens opposed the takeover and wanted the hospital to remain a joint venture between the church and the government.

But whatever was the position of the majority of Mbaise people at that time, the fact remains that the only Catholic Church-owned hospital in Mbaise was taken over by the Nigerian government immediately the missionaries were expelled from Nigeria as a result of the loss of the civil war. This had created a very serious vacuum in the healthcare delivery infrastructure throughout Mbaise land. And it would constitute a great handicap to the new diocese that was erected in the area some seventeen years after the missionaries had left.

The irony of the time was that the other joint hospitals in the other zones such as Amaigbo and Mbano were allowed to operate as the missionaries had left them. They operated as joint ventures between the government and the Church. And they helped in no small measure to midwife the healthcare systems of the new dioceses that would soon be erected in the two zones of Orlu and Okigwe. But the case of Ahiara Diocese was different. It was not afforded the luxury of having even a half hospital such as a joint hospital as it set out to thrive as an independent diocese.

But Bishop Chikwe would not allow himself to be daunted by the enormity of the challenge in the area of healthcare in his new diocese. Rather he was determined to change the situation for the better. He charted a multi-pronged approach to the problem. His first approach was a very ambitious plan to build a brand new hospital in the new diocese that would be of the size of a government-run General Hospital. His second was to try to upgrade the existing maternity homes into hospitals and maternity homes with resident doctors operating in them as in a regular hospital. The third approach was to build more satellite hospital clinics and maternity hospitals as well as encourage the existing hospitals and maternity hospitals to embark on regular medical outreach programmes to communities that did not have hospital or healthcare facilities close to them.

From late August 1988 the new bishop began his familiarization tour of the parishes of the dioceses. His first port of call after visiting his home parish of St Rose’s Parish Ihitte Ezinihitte was Our Lady of Victory Church, Amumara, Ezinihitte Centre. There at Amumara the new bishop made a startling announcement of his intention to build a General Hospital-size of a hospital in Amumara in order to address the dearth of efficient healthcare centres in the diocese. This announcement was greeted with thunderous ovation. The people rejoiced and danced that what they had been looking for in the upper chambers of their homes would soon be available to them in the lower chambers [Ihe achowa n’uko elu, a hula ya n’uko ala], meaning that what the communities in Mbaise had been asking the successive governments and even the old diocese to do for them had suddenly become available for them with the inception of the new diocese.

However, the drawback to Bishop Chikwe’s announcement would soon become clearer. The bishop did not have any cash to begin the building of the proposed hospital. He had hoped that he would be able to find some donor agencies to provide the funds for the building of the big hospital in Amumara Ezinihitte. But he would soon find out that the process of getting some donor agencies to make funds available for the execution of big projects had over the years become extremely difficult.

A few years before the creation of the diocese, some donor agencies began to cut back their assistance to foreign beneficiaries in mission countries partly as a result of diminishing pledges and donations from their benefactors and partly also because of some skepticism and suspicion that had crept in regarding the funding of big projects in mission countries. It turned out that Ahiara Diocese was born when it was becoming increasingly difficult to attract foreign aids for the building of institutions in mission countries.

After the announcement of his plan to build a big hospital in Ahiara Diocese, the bishop would embark on a furious writing of project proposals to donor agencies around the world requesting for some help to build a hospital in his new diocese that had practically nothing along the line of a healthcare facility. This campaign would go on for some years without any agency willing to finance the proposed hospital in Ahiara Diocese. But the bishop remained hopeful that God would touch the hearts of some agency or somebody somewhere around the world to help the diocese realize her mission of building a befitting hospital for the teeming population of real and potential patients throughout Mbaise land. This effort would continue unabated till the end of Bishop Chikwe’s life.

While not abandoning his determination to attract some foreign donors to help the diocese embark on the building of a befitting hospital, the bishop would embark on the second phase of his plan to improve the healthcare delivery system of the diocese. And that was the upgrading of the existing maternity homes into maternity hospitals with resident doctors as well as the encouragement of the staff of those health facilities to embark on medical outreaches to all the communities in Mbaise land. This approach would bring instant result. Many communities of the new diocese that had never had medical personnel visit them in the years gone by suddenly began to see such people on a regular basis.

It is not possible to quantify how much health relief this plan had brought to the people of Mbaise land. But there were some noticeable changes in the way Mbaise people reacted to their health needs. Gradually the problem of self-medication and patronizing of medical quacks that often resulted in health complications began to diminish little by little. Many people began to realize that the professional touches of some medical personnel were much more effective than entrusting their health problems to medical quacks and/or embarking on self-medication on the basis of dangerous guess works about their health needs.

As Bishop Chikwe patiently waited for some donor agencies to provide funds for the building of a big hospital in the diocese, he decided to work towards transforming one of the maternity hospitals into a full-fledged hospital. His reasoning then was in line with his overall philosophy in the new diocese. He believed that while we prayed and waited for some external help we would not fold our arms and refuse to help ourselves. He made the old aphorism his own, namely, that heaven helps those who help themselves. Bishop Chikwe believed that the best help we could ever get for the building up of our diocese would have to come from ourselves. “Our best help must come from within and from among ourselves,” he often said.

It was this philosophy of his that would inform the building up of the Maternity Hospital at Ogbor Nguru into a full-fledged hospital. The former Maternity Home at Ogbor Nguru called St Joseph’s Maternity Home, after her host parish of St Joseph’s Parish Ogbor Nguru, had been established there by the missionaries under the patronage and care of the Holy Rosary Sisters. It was transferred to the Immaculate Heart Sisters following the expulsion of the missionaries immediately after the civil war.

The choice of Ogbor Nguru Maternity Hospital over the other ones, especially over Queen of Peace Maternity Hospital Amumara, where Bishop Chikwe had made his initial promise to build a big hospital, was informed by the former’s accessibility. According to Bishop Chikwe, the new diocese needed a hospital that was accessible, that could be easily reached in a situation of emergency and not one whose accessibility could be impaired by bad roads. That was how St Joseph’s Maternity Hospital was transformed into a diocesan hospital. Bishop Chikwe recovered and gave the new hospital the old name it bore when the missionaries were in charge, namely, Holy Rosary Hospital, Ogbor Nguru.

But where Bishop Chikwe would make his mark in the healthcare delivery of the period was along the line of confronting one of the most dangerous health challenges of the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that point in time the most dangerous health problem came from the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome [HIV-AIDS] that was spreading like a wide fire across the continent of Africa. There was no known cure or vaccine for this deadly disease that was ravaging and putting the whole world in a terrible fear. The only response the World Health Organization [WHO] had come up with at that time was sensitization, chastity and abstinence. But even the needed programme of sensitization had not gotten any foothold in Nigeria. The entire Nigerian nation was in a daze as far as confronting the HIV-AIDS pandemic. Nobody had any clear idea of what to do so as to prevent or slow down the pandemic from ravaging our communities.

But Bishop Chikwe was always a man who kept one healthy step ahead of his peers. Shortly after his installation as the new bishop of Ahiara Diocese, Bishop Chikwe fashioned out some HIV-AIDS sensitization programmes of his own. First, he read as much literature on the pandemic as he could find. Second, he procured many films on the ravages of the disease across the world. Third, he embarked on moving from one centre to another throughout Mbaise land where he showed films on the ravages of HIV-AIDS across the world. He would embark on teaching people on what to do to avoid contracting the disease.

Bishop Chikwe would take his sensitization programme on HIV-AIDS a notch higher when he returned from his vacation overseas with a brand new digital film projector with which he travelled across the entire diocese showing films on the ravages of the pandemic and teaching people on what to do to avoid the dangerous disease. This campaign would become an instant success across Mbaise land. A few days in a week, Bishop Chikwe would set out in the evening to a few parishes in the diocese and would spend some two to three hours showing films on the ravages of the disease. He would teach people not only about what they needed to do practically to avoid contracting the disease but also on how the disease was a veritable challenge for them to live up to the obligations of their faith.

Bishop Chikwe was about the only chief shepherd of his time who had such a vision on how to combat the spread of HIV-AIDS. Before even the Nigerian government could wake up from slumber, Bishop Chikwe had taken up the initiative to confront the dreaded HIV-AIDS pandemic through intensive sensitization. He was one of the most caring shepherds of his time. To give accent to his role as a shepherd, Bishop Chikwe created a wonderful catechesis on the pandemic that would become immensely popular and helpful in alerting Mbaise people to the grave dangers of the dreaded HIV-AIDS pandemic.

To be continued …..