There is no signpost anywhere within Minna town, in Niger State indicating the location of the centre. But then the facility itself has no official name. Locating it even at the Maitumbi FM area, where it is tucked in the back woods, is a herculean task for a first time visitor.
The proprietress fondly referred to as “Dr Hussaina” and her four-man staff, all of whom are her children are on hand to attend to the patients.
At 65, she moves with the agility that belies her age as she hands directives to her lieutenants on how to handle different cases. Her many years of experience on the job, which has become her only love from childhood, reflects in every instruction handed out.
“With Allah’s grace, I can handle all degree of fractures, and I have been doing so for many years”, she told our correspondent.
Malama Hussaina also attends to people with spinal cord problems and those suffering from stroke. She learnt the trade from her aged father, Malam Jibrin of Unguwar Majidadi, Gidan Mai Zaki-Zaki, in Kotangora town early in life, and started practice at the age of 10 with minor cases ,before graduating into handling of more complex cases. When she eventually got married and moved to Minna, she had garnered enough experience in bone-setting to start off on her own. She was to acquire land at the outskirts of Maitumbi and built the facility, following her rising profile and consequent increase in number of clients.
However, twenty years on, the facility could hardly contain her patients. “I don’t need a signpost,” she declared. Even without an advertisement, the number of the clients has been overwhelming, with the facility understandably overstretched.
These are aside those with special cases that would require her travelling to attend to patients outside the state. Such cases have taken her to places like Lagos, Anambra, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, Port Harcourt, Borno, Benue, Nasarawa and others.
Apart from individual relations, who come with loved ones, security agencies such as police and road safety officials, take accident victims that require orthopedic attention to the facility. So also are cases considered by orthodox hospitals as hopeless.
One of such cases is that of 38 year old David Ekpe, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) expert from Benue state. David was involved in what would have been a fatal accident in Bida, Niger state on Tuesday September 12, 2017. A commercial motorcycle he was riding on had run into another one carrying ceiling boards at an intersection in the ancient town.
The impact threw him on the middle of the ever busy township road. The driver of a tanker carrying petrol tried desperately to avoid crushing him. The driver succeeded in stopping the vehicle but with one of the front tyres on his right hand. “The pain enveloped my entire body,” he recalls. Then everything went blank. He later found himself at the Federal Medical Centre Bida, where a Dr. Chucks attended to his severely damaged hand. He was lucky that the bone was intact. The hand was operated upon, stitched and David was moved to the ward to recuperate.
A woman, who has been monitoring the situation at the hospital, adviced them to rather go to a local facility at Maitumbi instead. He didn’t not argue. Malama Hussaina and an assistant, who is also her first son, went to work immediately.
Then the anticipated miracle happened when they noticed the blood a day later. Five days later, the flesh began to resurface; the veins grew and the blood began to flow. As David rubbed the heavily bandaged hand lovingly with a glow in his eyes, his regret is not being able to discover that such a “wonderful place” exist in Minna on time. “By now, my condition would have more improved,” he said.
Malam Abubakar Sani, who was involved in an accident that affected his spinal cord in 2011, also expressed the same regret of not discovering the facility early enough.
He was first admitted at Suleja General Hospital, from where he was later referred to Dala Specialist hospital in Kano. His condition also took him to Niamey in Niger republic, and later a hospital in Katsina State.
30-year-old Ahmed Dagana, a graduate of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBBU), Lapai, has also moved from one health facility to another after an accident until one of the relations brought him to Hussina’s centre, where he said there was some measure of improvement. “Before, I could not move my hand but now I can do so ,and I can even walk around the premises,” he said.
Ahmed’s hope of full recovery, according to him, was further fired by the number of patients with complex cases that he met. “I keep seeing patients, who orthodox hospitals including tertiary facilities failed to handle, but were given hope,” he noted.
Such patients include Malama Suwaiba Ibrahim from Kamache village in Munya local government area of the state. An accident in April 2013 left her incapacitated as she could not use both legs. Like many others, she has also moved around several hospitals, including orthopedic centres for treatment without success. She now shared a room at the Maitumbi facility with 72 year-old Malama Adama Musa from Shiroro local government area of Niger state.
Adama was involved in an accident which detached the spheroidal joint around the hip from the cup. She was taken to the facility about three months back, but now strolls round the premises.
She joked about how Jibrin, the Proprietress son who the 72-year-old referred to as her husband, forced the joint back into the socket. “The pain was unbearable, but without that effort I would not have been able to walk again,” he averred.
However, at 65 and with nine children and many grand children, Hussaina said she is already planning for retirement. But even at that, many believe that her eventual exit would not in any way create a vacuum, as all her children are already entrenched in what has become a family vocation.
She said her work is more or less a humanitarian service. David’s wife, Joyce confirmed this, saying Hussaina never requested for money before she commenced treatment on her husband. “It was when she was certain that she could treat him after three days that she asked us to deposit N20, 000’, she explained.
Unlike the Ekpes, Malam Abubakar Sani has no cash to deposit, yet his treatment is on going. “In fact, Hajiya Hussaina has to take care of my feeding herself,” he said. Hajiya Hussaina said that one of the main challenges she faces is accommodation for her surging number of patients. She wants government to intervene in this regard.
