As published by Late DR. CHRISTOPHER GBELOKOTO OKOJIE in his book titled:
Commentary on Seventeen years fight against Ignorance, Superstition, Disease.

"No it must be here and my information is that he is a Doctor!" "But, Father, Ishan has No Doctor!"
It was a rather heated argument between two deep voices in front of my Cousin's House where I had lodged on arrival the previous day. Curiously, though it was 1 a.m., I came out to find a Rev. Father and a man arguing over a young man who that evening had been seen at Confession at the local Catholic Church. I greeted them and told them my name DR. CHRISTOPHER GBELOKOTO OKOJIE. Straight away in anxious tone the Father informed me a life was in danger: for two years since the opening of the Catholic Hospital at Uromi, the old lady doctor there had never had leave; that very afternoon she went off on two weeks vacation and at 7 p. m. a woman was brought from the village in labour. The labour had been so prolonged that the patient was tired and going downhill; the Midwives were at their wits end. "Doctor," he pleaded, "Could you come and help?" "Sure", I replied. I brought out my small Austin Car and sleepily drove the seven miles from Ubiaja to Uromi. There I found a young frightened woman, tired and in obvious distress. She had been in labour for some 30 hours, the Midwives told me. A quick examination showed that the presenting part was too big for the size of the patient and normal delivery would be impossible. I instructed the Nurses to prepare for operation. By 2.30 a.m., using a hurricane lantern as my source of light, I completed the caesarean Section. The next morning I drove to see the Patient and found a happy mother and a beautiful female baby.

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A week after this incident I moved to Irrua, my Mother's Home. I put up in Mr. Osobase's house which is only about fifty yards from the Main Road. On my first morning in the Town, at about 5.30 a.m., I heard shouts of some people

expressing sorrow, shock, while the louder ones jeered. I came out to see what the matter was and what I saw shock­ed me. Sprawled on the sandy road was a thinly clad woman, bleeding. I asked the people around what was wrong. "Poor devil", snared one, "She had offended ONENE and yesterday after she had had her baby

by the great juju withheld the Afterbirth; I think she was trying to make for her parent's village when she began to lose blood and she collapsed". I didn't wait to hear more. I dashed back to the house for my car. I asked the people to help me put the cold woman .nan in the car but to my utter astonishment, no one dared, for it is a firm belief that anyone who helped an ONENE victim would himself be doomed! I pleaded in vain and just had to stand by the unfortunate woman helplessly until two men, apparently, strangers to Irrua and ONENE JUJU, came along. "Give me a hand men!" I said generally as if I was talking to some old friends! Bending down, one of them queried, "A motor accident?" "Yes"., I lied! We put her on the back seat and I drove to the only place I thought I could get help the local Native Authority Maternity Home. I got there to find a Midwife, four wooden beds with mats and four walls: nothing else! We got the bleeding woman onto one of the wooden beds and after administering an ampoule of Morphine, I did a manual removal of the Placenta. The woman survived and the dreaded ONENE suffered a hitherto unknown defeat! Later I learnt all the ONENE Priests were very upset about the incident.

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I looked back on the past week I had spent in Ishan and wondered. Suppose I was not here this last week at least two mothers and a child might have been lost because of want of care. Goodness knew how many lives were lost under similar circumstances in the area and goodness knew how many deaths could have been preventable! I then began to argue with my self: would I be most useful as a doctor in the cities and under the cushioned government service? Could I possibly turn my back on the good pay, dignity and comfort of practice as a Government Medical Officer? If I stayed with my people, what had I? No equipment, no hospital, no money but I only had my brains, hands and good health. I frankly had always thought I would come back to my people: that would be after I had made enough money, but by then would I not have been saddled with responsibilities of a wife and children? Just then I had a fiancee Miss Olayemi Olufunke Phillips, studying Nursing in the United Kingdom. My Mother had died on th3 12th of August, 1948, just a year after my graduation. My only responsibility at that time was my 84 year old Grandmother, whose only child, my mother, she had lost. For weeks I struggled with myself telling no one, not even my Guardian, Mr. M. E. Osobase who saw me through College and the Medical School. A week before I was to resume duty in the then British Cameroons, I made a decision: my people's need was far greater than that of the Government for my services.

To everybody's surprise, particularly that of the Director of Medical Services, who only a few months before had written such a glowing tribute for my services during my secondment to the Cameroons Development Corporation, I tendered my resignation from the Government Service. People were more taken aback when they learnt of what I was going to do instead: to build a hospital, work and live amongst my superstitious people! Wrote my Fiancee from England "Chris, what you say, to me, is mere sentimental outburst; you are a youth of 29 true, but throughout medical history, have you heard of one man building a Hospital?" I hadn't, but I was going to do all I could FOR MY PEOPLE!

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At that time, the year was 1950, Ishan division had a population of 192,000. There was just one Doctor, an English woman of 56, working at the Catholic Hospital at Uromi. The health of the people was in the hands of awe inspiring Native doctors or Herbalists most of whom "cured" by mesmerizing their patients! Some of them too, specialised in various ailments. Some were bonesetters, others treated only gunshot injuries, some specialised on snake Bites while some were famous for their ability to treat mental conditions. I myself was not a complete stranger to the "profession"! In Ishan custom, at the fourth month of birth the father of the baby invites the village elders to help him reveal who reincarnated in the new born. Ishans believe that when one dies he returns to the world and so people always pray to re­turn better and happier, but one could not change one's sex. Usually when a person returns he tends towards the trade he practiced in the past world. So when I was born, my father, Chief Okojie, the Onojie (King) of UGBOHA, a District in Ishan Division, was informed at the Palace Oracle Session that I was reincarnated by a famous native doctor who had died in my father's house years before. He had returned as my father's child in gratitude for all he had done to help him during the accident which finally caused his death; he had said he would come back a greater native doctor. Thus from my childhood I found my room and surrounding filled with native horns, Native doctor's flyswish and all the paraphernalia of the art; most of my toys had something to do with herbs, fortune telling etc. At 5 I went to the local Catholic School. One morning a message came from the Onojie that the King wanted to see the whole school. So the Headmaster marched all of us to the Palace; on getting there he moved along the line until he got to me, snatched me and said "This is a doctor don't waste his time with book!"
"But,  but........"  muttered  the  astonished  Schoolmaster;
"Enough!" thundered the King and the interview was at an end! The next day I found myself on the shoulders of two of my father's strongest and fiercest Messengers; I was too dazed and afraid to ask where we were going to. They trekked all day and by evening we came to the bank of a huge river the lordly River Niger. We crossed in an equally huge canoe and by night we got to our destination the house of Chief Onate, the most renowned native doctor in all Igala land. The messengers informed him that I was sent to him by the King of Ugboha; he was to see that I knew everything about herbs and ability TO SEE!

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I had to work in close Cooperation with the Missionaries who had for years carried on the battle against Ignorance and Superstition.

The next morning they left and I found myself an apprentice to the great Onate.   He would break kolanuts, spray them on the floor, look at them intensely and begin to tell everyone around his future and generally, what is going to happen later in the day, tomorrow or next year. Many of these predictions I found to be true. For three good years he did his best to teach me the art;   he was always bragging that since he got me at the most receptive age at the age of five he was going to make a wonderful doctor out of me.   For my part I took my studies seriously but despite our joint efforts each time he threw kolanuts on the floor and asked me to say all I was seeing I would say exactly what I saw PIECES OF KOLANUT! In bitter disappointment he would yell,"You empty head, you mean you are not seeing those men heading for their doom, can't you see them plotting to harm that innocent man at the far corner?" "Papa, believe me, I am seeing only kolanuts!" Finally in desperation he returned me to my father as   a   failure: "He has no head for Medicine" he said very much disappoint­ed ; , my old man after repeated mumblings that it is either the Oracle lied or the great Onate was a very poor teacher, sent me back to school! By the time I was 11 my father had died; my mother, Princess Helen Theresa Zuma who herself was a daughter of the Onojie of Irrua, could not shoulder all the responsibilities of my  schooling alone.     My Cousin, Mr. M. E. Osobase came to her rescue until with a series of scholarships I was able to complete my medical studies. On the 8th of August, 1947 I became a Doctor, though 19 years earlier I had been pronounced having no head for medicine and unfit to be a Witch Doctor!

It is with this background on the 27th of March, 1950, that I opened the ZUMA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL in a small rented house of six rooms with 12 wooden beds. All I had consisted of borrowed instruments from friends and my small savings from government service. I named the Hospital after my Mother who died just when she ought to have started getting some rewards for her years of sacrifice.

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The very first week a woman with Obstructed Labour was brought in from the local N. A. Maternity. I performed a Caesarean Operation and both Mother and Baby were saved. Soon I began to hear of ominous meetings of the powerful Native doctors! With lectures in the Native Court Hall, in Market Places and in fact anywhere I was sure of getting a hearing and later in the Social Club I had founded in Irrua, I drummed into the ears of my people the value of antenatal care and the dangers of taboos which surprisingly were over foods Meat, Fish, Palm Oil, Fruits etc most needed by the pregnant woman ;Many women began to attend the Hospital to the annoyance of the native doctors. Knowing the great powers these people held over the community, I decided to befriend rather than antagonize them. I knew some of them were really good at the use of herbs while others were expert bone setters; while it took me about three months to mend a broken thigh bone in the hospital these native doctors needed only 2 to 3 weeks; the bones might be bent but they got their patients on their feet within three weeks! I started visiting some of them and as much as professional jealousy would allow, they taught me some of their treatments though I kept clear of "future telling!" Despite all these friendly acts some of them were openly hostile. On one occasion a woman was brought in with an obvious Obstructed Labour due to marked Disproportion. I decided to operate but the woman who was a relation of one of the most feared native doctors, refused and the relatives removed her in a huff to the herbalist's house. It was Irrua Market day. Two hours after, I saw a group of War Dancers covered in white chalk, Ishan sign of rejoicing. As they came towards the hospital they sang a song the refrain of which was "AND WE TOLD YOU THE WHITE MAN'S DOCTOR WAS A FAKE AND A FRAUD!" I learnt the woman I had said could not deliver by herself had been relieved of the baby by the herbalist who pulled it out in pieces. All of a sudden as they came into the hospital premises the singing and dancing stopped and the people sort of vanished. Much relieved myself, I asked a market woman what had happened. "Bad news!" she said; "someone had just come to tell them that the woman they were dancing for had started to bleed after leaving the herbalist's house and had died!" For once as a doctor, I found one death that had not made me unhappy!

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While these illiterate but crafty men of herbs were trying their damndest to discredit me and the Hospital, I worked round the clock, knowing that the more patients I am able to treat and get well the more apostles I had. I won another round in our undeclared war when a young man was brought to me with a painful Sliding or Scrotal Hernia. I charged him six guineas but in the afternoon he was removed by his relatives to the house of one of the most powerful Witch doctors in the area. She was told that I had demanded some £6 which led to her snorting, "Rubbish, you foolish people now say you are civilized and only know the White man's doctor; this, you all know is something I could treat with a stroke of my UCHE (a very sharp triangular knife). She only asked for a he goat, a white cock and £2 which they very readily paid. The native surgeon went to work with her UCHE; truly, she only made one stroke and both patient and doctor, I was told later, fainted! I was called in the evening to the hospital to see the same young man I had seen earlier in the morning, with his intestines wrapped in a big cocoyam leaf! the doctor had incised his scrotum and the contents came unto the floor! And so the cold war continued!

My relationship with the powerful native doctors was not really my major headache. I considered most of their threats as a mere bluff. For instance one at a very noisy public oracle session, told the gathering that he could very easily make my car stop dead with merely throwing a few black powder on my way. Throughout those hectic days the only time my car ever let me down, despite its age was one rainy morning. I was some 200 yards from this garrulous man's house when the old Austin coughed and conked out. No amount of coaxing and pushing would make it start again until a mechanic came and found the petrol pipe had been blocked not by the herbalist's black powder but by red Ishan dust!

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Within three months of the opening of the Zuma Memorial so many difficulties stared me in the face that I began to do some research into history of hospitals. Somewhere in the early ages, there must have been one foolish but brave man who started a hospital! Surely not all hospitals had been started and built by the government, community or Missions! Offer anything, I just couldn't get any trained Nurse to Irrua to help me. After repeated advertisements a Midwife from Benin City, 60 miles away, wrote to apply. I was foolish in asking her to come for interview. She came, took one long look at Irrua Market, saw women struggling with 300 feet hand splitting ropes to get buckets of red water from our only source of water, a 256 feet well by the hospital and asked at the end of the interview: "'Tell me doctor, how far is the nearest Cinema from here?" "Ah!" I ad-libed, "You are talking of Entertainment! There is not a night there is no dancing and excitement at the central herbalist's house next door. As a matter of fact I had to take sleeping pills every night before I got used to the incessant drumming!" "So", she sighed, and made a beeline for her native City! I never saw that girl again! DRUGS! The nearest pharmacy was in Lagos, only 400 miles away! It took 2 to 3 weeks for me to get urgently ordered drugs and since I hadn't the fund I could not stock what I needed. Water gave me many anxious moments. Often the theatre would be set for an emergency only to be told not that there is no water but NO FLUID since perforce, I had learnt to use anything that flowed! Things brightened up very much for us when the Ishan Divisional Authority bought some­thing like a petrol Tanker which once a week brought me 1000 gallons of water at 48 shillings from Ubiaja, 16 miles away. I realised that the only solution to the staffing problem was to train local girls already used to the hardship of the area although two or three after training found Ishan too bush for their knowledge and WENT ABROAD TO Benin, Ibadan or even Lagos! At a great expense when my wife had returned from Britain and joined me in trying to do the impossible, we finally fulfilled all the stringent conditions laid down by the Midwives Board of Nigeria. Then we got accredited as a Training School for Grade Two Midwives. Only then, after four years of hell on earth, were our problems of staff solved. Because of lack of suitable accommodation we found we could not take all the eager girls of the area struggling to become Nurses. With their daughters now working in the hospital, many parents began taking more interest in hospital treatments or white man's medicine as they called hospital practice. We also won the mothers over by giving all children under two years absolutely free treatments though we could not really afford the great expense on drugs. The people were very much impressed with the effective treatments for our greatest scourges; Malarial Convulsion, Measles and Tropical Diarrhea. Because of the traditional gratitude of the people of Ishan, although we had no money in our pockets, my wife and I were easily the best fed in the Division! Yams, Eggs, Fruits etc. which the mothers could not afford to eat themselves, they sent to us. Often, a patient before telling me her complaint, would repeatedly ask of my wife and children (I had neither then!) and would deposit a calabashful of lovely Sleep driving kolanuts on the table: I found it most difficult to charge any fees after accepting such presents. So that I *should not suffer at both ends I had to learn to eat these hunger killing nuts!

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One of the most dreadful superstitions of the Ishans is that surrounding death of a mother at birth: if she died and the baby lived such a child was regarded as KILLER BABY and no other woman would agree to take or suckle such a baby. Invariably such babies died within a few days. We gave several lectures and tried to convince the people that these babies were innocent and were as much victims as their unfortunate mothers all to no avail; so we asked that all such babies be sent to us even though we knew we had neither the accommodation nor artificial Milk. We hired a non Ishan woman at thirty shillings a month to sit at our busy Out-patient department every morning ostensibly breast feeding STEPHEN ISHIANI, our very first Orphan. (He is 14 now but still unclaimed!) After two weeks I began to brag to the Mothers that nothing had happened to that good woman. I had spoken too quickly, for within a few days she developed such virulent Breast abscesses that I was sure I was going to lose her. If I did, the native doctor and superstition would take over completely in Ishan. So I gave everything I could think of and fortunately she recovered but neither the thirty shillings nor pleadings would make her join me in the experiment after wards! Soon however, we began to have day old babies sent to us not only from Ishan but from the districts around and this gave birth to Zuma Memorial Hospital Orphanage where today we have 24 children from three months to 14 years. In the the last three years some have been claimed by their relatives as good children after all while all those above 5 are in school at our expense.

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In September 1951 we moved into the hospital permanent site, a 22 acre spot given to me by H.H. Isidae home II, the Ogirruaand his people in gratitude for my little development efforts. The first building was really an Out-Patient Block which we were allowed to use as Wards and Operating Theatre. A second building we used as our house. The next year the first block was built in the Nurses Home. In 1956 in recognition of my work amongst my people, the American Government with the concurrence of the British and Nigerian Governments, offered me a Fulbright Scholarship to specialize in Surgery and my wife to study Nursing Education. In September of that year we preceded to the United States, I studying in the cavernous Bellevue Medical Centre while my wife studied at Teachers College, Columbia University. In America, many friends found it impossible to believe what we had tried to do and repeatedly asked us whether we had been inspired by Albert Schwitzer.

Frankly I had never heard of the great man before I founded the Zuma Memorial. Many heard us with sympathy and admiration. We got donations of drugs and equipments from such public organizations as U. S. Vitamins Corporation, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Baxter Laboratories, big hearted individuals like Mr. SolKittay, of the B. V. D. Co. Inc., the late Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, Mr. and Mrs Joe Faber, Miss Thelma London, Mr. Mansa Musa Malle (simply, John, to us!) Mr. and Mrs Barnette, Dr. F. D. Patterson, Dr. Emory Ross Dr. Stephen Richardson, that great publicity shy philanthropist Mrs Claudia Haines Marsh of Public Welfare Foundation, BIG JOE of Happiness Exchange Foundation, Inc. Mr. and Mrs Peter Weiss, Mrs Arline de Mahy etc. and philanthropic bodies like the Phelps Stokes Fund, the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children etc. We could never have been able to take back to Nigeria all we got but for assistance of Farrel Lines of New York City. American Radio and Television net work, were extremely helpful.

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Within three months of our return the Zuma Memorial Hospital began to assume a new look. A brand new Operation Theatre the Kittay Building, Charity Block consisting of Female Surgical and Medical Wards and Baby Orphan Ward were built. Two new blocks Peter & Cora Weiss and Helen Lampe were added to the Nurses Home giving accommodation to 20 new Nurses. For three straight years Mrs Claudia Marsh of Public Welfare Foundation Inc. which knows no geography, creed or race, but goes alleviating human sufferings all over the world, sent us 2500 dollars a year thus enabling us to build new Wards and to modernize old ones. Through the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children Mrs. Martha S. Reynolds endowed a Bed in memory of her Mother, Mrs. Ernestine Schaffner. In 1960 the New Jersey Junior Chamber of Commerce adopted me for their "OPERATION DOCTOR" Programme which resulted in their sending me a large quantity of Drugs, Equipments and Books. Before this in 1958, through the much appreciated intermediary of Mrs. Elizabeth Griffinof Bellevue  Medical  Centre,  the Tennyson  Foundation donated a £400 Operating table to the Hospital.

Today there is an Xray department made possible by Mr. Sol Kittay of New York City. The hospital that started with 12 wooden beds in 1930, grew to 48 before we went to the States in 1956, today has 120 proper hospital beds and 12 Cots. Our one very major problem today is how to find the money to meet running cost. We have learnt over the years that charging fees that would enable us find the necessary money only defeats our aim in founding the Zuma Memorial: to make our people see the wisdom of early hospital treatment and preventing unnecessary wastage of human lives: high fees have only one end result driving the patients back into the hypnotising embrace of the Native doctor!

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For seventeen years the Zuma Memorial Hospital had been synonymous with Dr. Okojie. As long as I am healthy and strong the hospital would continue running but, I am now 47 and cannot continue to do all the work alone. My wife has been the Matron, Tutor in charge of the Midwifery School and has to do all the administration and yet supervise the treatments in the Wards. We now have children in Schools and colleges and can no longer appreciate payments in kind. The Hospital has now got to a stage when more doctors and Nursing Sisters must be recruited. I have now a young assistant, Dr. Francisco Battung, all the way from the Philippines! Today in 1967 when things have so much improved in our Country, the ratio of doctors to population is about one to 40,000; so the question of getting a fellow Nigerian to join me in "THIS BUSH" is out of the question. This is the simple answer to a foreign friend who asked me why I had to pay perishing transport money to get a man all the way from the Philippines. It is almost as difficult for my wife to get more highly qualified Nurses to come and help her since Irrua is very rural and amusement facilities are non-existent. She definitely needs at least Six Nursing Sisters to be able to run the Midwifery School, supervise treatments and the Midwives in training in the Wards but it costs some £700 minus allowances per annum to secure the Services of a Nursing Sister even in the Cities. Since there is no electricity in Ishan we have had to buy and run our own Generating Plants which we have found so expensive to maintain despite the fact that we only keep them running at night no matter the great need to keep some vital drugs and vaccines under refrigeration. Till today neither myself nor my wife has been able to be assured of a regular monthly salary.

THE FUTURE OF THE HOSPITAL:

As I get older I get more and more frightened about the future of the Hospital. With the Hospital being synonymous with Dr. Okojie, the future is dim. Suppose Dr. Okojie dies tomorrow or is incapacitated, what happens to the Hospital? It would be terrible to have to put up such a spirited fight against IGNORANCE, SUPERSTITION AND DISEASE over seventeen grueling years only to allow the whole edifice to crumble because it was built around ONE MAN. This is why there is such an urgent need for me NOW to have a Sponsor, a body that can help or take over the Hospital and ensure its perpetuity. Though the Hospital became Government assisted in 1963, that help can only continue to come as long as the Hospital remains open. It would be a cruel and sad end were I to go out of the scene and darkness should fall upon this single lit spot which has enabled my wife and I TO SAVE AND TO SERVE.