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From Uchenna Inya, Abakaliki
St. Vincent De Paul Destitute Home, popularly known as Old People’s Home, located in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital, was established many decades ago to take care of the destitute who cannot afford food, shelter and healthcare.
It is strategically located in the capital city in Alo street within Kpirikpiri axis in the metropolis. The home has only two buildings with small compound which are yearning for attention because of their deplorable conditions.
The inhabitants of the home who are made up of cripple, deaf, dumb, blind and other deformities, depend solely on government, organizations and public spirited individuals’ donations for survival.
But it does appear that they have been forgotten, forcing them to raise the alarm that they are dying of neglect, hunger and sickness. They revealed that they have lost three persons in the home because of hunger and lack of general care.
John Lekpa, caretaker of the home, lamented that they have lost three persons in the home owing to hunger, lack of medical care and total neglect.
He called on Governor Francis Nwifuru and wife to come to their aid. He urged the governor to be giving monthly subvention to them to tackle the numerous problems confronting them.
He told Daily Sun: “As the father of the state, we wish to draw your attention to the problems facing the old people’s home: lack of medical attention/care, lack of feeding in the home, inaccessibility of our environment and dilapidated buildings that we are living in.
“None of the inmates of the old people’s home have benefited from your administration’s numerous empowerment programmes. Our people are here dying of illnesses, hunger, no doctors, no nurses that take care of us. Our only me means of survival is through donations from individuals.
“Last year alone, we lost three persons in the home due to lack of medical attention. The state government can assist us even if it is once in a week or in a month for medical care by sending nurses or doctors to be accessing our health status.
“We are suffering seriously, we are dying of hunger. This morning, we have been thinking of what to eat because we don’t have any food in the home.
“Our buildings are very dilapidated as you can see. During rainy season like this, everywhere is leaking, no building is safe from this and we are physically challenged persons, we can’t move out of buildings whenever it rains to avoid being soaked in water.
“Our environment entirely needs urgent attention; it needs to be put in order. When it rains, we are usually trapped. We can’t move and some persons here are very old and they can’t move.
“We are appealing to our dear governor and his wife to come to our aid for we have nobody to run to.”
Nwakpu Caroline, another destitute in the home, corroborated Lekpa. She said: “We are dying of hunger, we don’t have food to eat, we are suffering a lot. Sickness is also dealing with us, we have no hospital and no drugs to take care of our health problems.
“We need urgent attention, we need help in all ramifications. We need to have something doing to carter for ourselves because we have seen that people no longer remember us and government has also forgotten us. Things are very difficult for us now, we have a lot of problems and we have not seen solutions to our problems.”
On her part, Oshim Maureen, who also lamented hunger, sickness and general hardship in the home, told Daily Sun that thieves have compounded problems of the destitute. She disclosed that the thieves do invade the home in the night and steal items donated to them and called for security in the home to prevent the crime.
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Oshim also called for empowerment of the destitute by training them in various skills to make them self-reliant and reduce over-dependence on donations for survival.
“Things are generally hard. We are the worst hit in this general hardship because we can’t care for ourselves because of our conditions. Some of us are blind and very old and they can’t do anything to survive.
“If not this our caretaker, John Lekpa, all of us would have died in this home. He has been the one caring for us since things because so difficult for us and nobody is supporting him and he is no longer capable because of the situation of things and that is why he is raising alarm now, calling on government and public spirited individuals to come to our aid.
“Some of us are sick and no medical attention to us. Last year, we lost three persons in this home for lack of medical care and we are still suffering same problem.
“We depend on public spirited individuals and government for survival and their helps are no longer coming. So, we need empowerment, we need to be trained on various skills so that we can survive on our own.
“We have numerous problems, the worst part is that thieves don’t pity us. They have been coming here in the night, stealing items donated to us by spirited individuals.
“We are calling on our governor and his dear wife to come to our aid and empower us the way they did to other people. We have heard various empowerment the governor has done in the state but none has reached us,” she stated.
Agbo Elizabeth, who also lamented the conditions of the destitute, praised wife of the state governor, Mrs. Mary-Maudline Nwifuru for her care to them. She however said that since last year, the Ebonyi First Lady has not visited them or sent items to them as she used to do and urged her not to forget them.
Her words: “The wife of our governor has been trying a lot for us. She has been taken care of us but it has been long she sent things to us. We have not seen her or her items since last year and that is why things are very difficult for us, that is why we are crying like this.
“Lack of food is one of our major problems. We don’t have food anymore and we can’t afford food because of our conditions.
“We also have lack of medical care, it is disturbing us alot. We lost three persons here last year because there was no medical attention to them. We have no place to rush them to save their lives and they died.
“If you go to hospital, you will be subjected to many processes, including paying for card before they will attend to you and we have no money for all those processes. This is why we lost those three persons that last year. In April last year, two persons died while the third one died on July. They died because there was no medical attention to them.”
She said that all the rooms in the two buildings are in deplorable conditions with deep holes and that the rooms are leaking seriously and called for urgent attention to the home to save them from untold hardship.
She urged Nwifuru to extend his empowerment programmes to the home to give the destitute a sense of belonging in his administration.
An elderly blind man in the destitute, Felix Nwanga, said he no longer eats in the home because of lack of food. He described food as source of living for the elderly and appealed for provision of food in the home to prolong his life and other senior citizens in the home.
“I want to be alive for little more time before I meet my creator but when there is no food, medical care, how can this be achieved? You know that food and medical care are necessities for an an elderly person like me but these things are not here.
“This home is supposed to have mobility, we supposed to have vehicle that will be carrying us to hospital when we are sick but we don’t have any let alone tricycle.
“There should be vehicle here or old tricycle just anything that will be assisting us when we have medical issues so that we can easily solve the issues and prevent further loss of lives,” he said.
He decried stealing of items donated to some of the destitute by members of the public and cursed those who stealing them items.
Nwanga said the thieves who usually come in the night to steal the items, have added to their woes, lamenting that sewing machines procured for some of the destitute for sewing clothes for the inmates and stitches their clothes, have all been stolen by the thieves.
Maria Okah, who baths and dresses the elderly in the home, described the conditions of the destitute as very pathetic and urged government, organizations and public spirited individuals to come to their aid.
She lamented that despite the conditions of the home and the destitute, some members of the public have been dumping other less privileged in the home without providing what should be used to carter for them, thereby worsening the conditions of the destitute and the home.
She cited a man who brought a pregnant teenage girl in the home and promised to come to the home the following day to provide food and resources for her care and has not surfaced since seven years he dropped the girl.
