Residents of Yaru in the Wa East District of the Upper West region have decried their inability to access healthcare services from health facilities in neighbouring communities due to the deplorable state of their roads.
The three major roads leading to the health facilities at Gudaayiri, Charingu and Naahaa are deadly bad and user-unfriendly, either by foot or motorbike talk less of car, the residents told Info Radio in an interview at the community.
They said the deplorable state of the roads, especially the Yaru-Gudaayiri road which serves as the commercial route has left their lives in misery as no socio-economic activity can be transacted.
“A few months back when my brother fell sick, thanks to God, we got a car but transporting him to Gudaayiri, and then to Wa, was a hell on earth. I suffered and I knew my brother, the indisposed was dying,” Mr Abdullah Mahama, a resident, recounted.
Mr Mahama recounted further, “Within the same period when I was taking my child to the health facility, I fell in water with him with the motorbike when I drifted into a gully dug and covered by water.”
Mr Limann Yakubu observed that the deplorable state of the road has dire consequences on their children’s education as their teachers find it difficult, and risk their lives, to ply the road to school, especially during the wet season.
“‘When it rains and one wants to come to Yaru, you go through hell’ and so our lives, the lives of our children and wives are in doom and gloom.
“No car can come or leave here when it rains, and when a funeral occurs here or elsewhere, our relatives cannot come neither can we go,” Mr Yakubu said, adding that it is severing their ties and bonds.
Mr Taller Mahama wondered if the road was constructed by humans or made by cattle given the ummotorable and deadly state of the road.
He likened the road situation of the community and their ability to access healthcare services from any of the three neighbouring communities to the weaving of nests by birds meant to be only flown in, with no linking roads.
Mr Mahama said they have observed that the government was not doing anything about their plights hence, “we have to be our own government” to rehabilitate the road.
He said they have therefore taken to communal labour to fix the road while calling on authorities and the benevolence of people to come to their aid.
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 enjoins member states to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages by 2030”.