NAN-H-75
Fence
By Mercy Osajiugo
Minna, Feb. 28, 2018 (NAN) The management of the Niger State Social Rehabilitation Centre, Minna has urged the state government to build a fence around the facility to forestall escape of inmates.
“An average of three patients abscond from the facility every month because it is porous and without a fence. We cannot continue like this,” the Chief Nursing Officer, Mrs. Marian Ibrahim, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Minna.
She said that it was risky to keep mental case patients in an unsecured facility because they had a high tendency to “stray out”.
According to her, if the centre is fenced, chances of unauthorised exits would be “drastically reduced”.
“We have been very lucky that all patients that absconded in the past were brought back by their parents or guardians. We cannot continue to overstretch that luck,” she said.
Ibrahim also complained that villagers had been encroaching on the rehabilitation centre’s land.
“As we speak, the health ministry has taken some of the villagers to court over alleged encroachment. Government must be proactive and fence the facility to ward off such trespassers,” she said.
She said that fencing the facility had become more necessary in view of the worsening security situation and the kidnapping of people.
“We have had parents threatening to sue us if their patients escape. The only sure way to avoid such escape is to fence the centre and man the gates,” she said. (NAN)
MNO/KTO/ETS
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Edited by Kamal Tayo Oropo