A History of Hope
A Hospital Used Up
A Hospital Used Up
In 1945, missionaries from the United States, working together with leaders in Nigeria, opened the mission that soon became Eku Baptist Hospital. For decades, this hospital was a beacon of hope for Nigerian communities and the soul of Eku.
The American missionaries, a husband-and-wife team expecting the birth of their first child, sailed more than 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) to make a difference in the lives of other people. A pastor and a nurse, they remained in Nigeria’s tropical rainforest region for two decades.
There, in the humid delta where the Niger River fans out to the sea, they met a man from Eku village who had given his life over to service too. This man, a founder of many schools and churches in remote places where there were none before, asked them to start a hospital by the Ethiope River in Eku.
He told the missionaries that he had seen all too many of his people suffer and die of preventable and curable conditions, or of injuries that medical professionals could have made well.
The missionaries came to Eku and saw the open door placed in front of them. Eku leaders quickly cleared valuable land by the river for an eventual hospital, while the missionaries opened a clinic in a one-room mud house in the village. Hope came to Eku — and grew.
By 1950, a hospital compound had been built up, and doctors from the United States and more nurses were on site. By 1959, there was a nursing school on the hospital grounds, and men and women from Eku and many surrounding places began to be accredited as registered nurses.
Thousands of lives were saved, and even more lives were uplifted. Because the hospital was established on the principle of Jesus “proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people,’’ the hospital endeavored to meet all physical and spiritual needs.
Many called it “the soul of Eku.’’ The sick and the hurting came from hours away for healing and hope, and the children of Eku grew up knowing that they could be doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and much more.
A Hospital Used Up
A Hospital Used Up
A Hospital Used Up
Now Eku’s hospital is but a shadow of itself. When the missionaries returned home after five decades in Africa, what they and the people of Eku had built up began to be used up. Once a powerhouse of progress, the hospital today barely functions.
At first, the administration of the hospital fell to the Nigerian Baptist Convention, working alone. Then, administration of the hospital fell to the Eku community, working alone. Now, management of the hospital rests with the Delta State government of Nigeria, which has other priorities.
With each change of managers, the hospital’s original vision of hope and healing has become more and more diffused. Without consistent and coordinated action by concerned and caring people, it will be lost. For few now look at Eku Baptist Hospital as a place of hope. And few can look to it for healing either.
The sign on the entrance building in 2019 says it all: whether through iniquity or indifference, much of what once made Eku Baptist Hospital a model of care is broken or missing.
Currently, the hospital’s services and infrastructure are in an appalling condition. Despite a new roof from the Delta State government in 2012, much of the hospital’s facilities and furniture are rapidly aging and poorly maintained. There have been power outages, supply shortages, and equipment losses.
More important, there are often no doctors. At times sick and hurting people get referred to pharmacies or clinics or faraway hospitals rather than thoroughly treated. There have been cases where people who could have been saved instead died, simply because there was no doctor on site for a week to treat them.
But all is not lost. Despite its woes and deficiencies, this remote Nigerian mission hospital still exists. It may be used up in giving for so long to so many, but the sons and daughters of the hospital’s healing and hope are working to restore Eku Baptist Hospital for generations to come.
The hospital, the goodwill of the people, and a history of hope are all still there, ready for rebirth — if there is consistent and coordinated action by concerned and caring people.
Even now, this is the Eku Baptist Hospital, and the powerhouse of progress, that we are fighting to restore.
Working Together
A Hospital Used Up
Working Together
You can help make Eku’s hospital a place of hope and healing again. Concerned and caring people worldwide are locking arms with medical, civil, and spiritual leaders raised in Eku. We are working together to restore Eku Baptist Hospital.
For five decades, medical, civil, and spiritual leaders of the past, from the United States and Nigeria, sowed seeds of hope at Eku. Today those seeds are sprouting: in a new generation of leaders all over the world who were raised up in Eku.
Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, engineers, entrepreneurs, writers, pastors, and more — so many people are who they are today because of the presence of Eku Baptist Hospital in the remote tropical rainforest region of Nigeria. Access to the hospital saved thousands of lives and uplifted even more.
Those who were saved and those who were uplifted are now determined to see the hospital restored to its beautiful and hard-working height so that it can be an outpost of life and love for the next generation too.
But it is not just the sons and daughters of Eku who are joining hands to do this important work. People all over the world are beginning to stand alongside them. People are lovingly standing up to support the fight to restore Eku’s hospital, even though they may never have heard of Eku, Nigeria, before.
Many of these people have been saved in some way themselves and now graciously want to give back wherever they can. Others, blessed to live in a land of great resources, grieve to think that anyone should live in a place without a functioning hospital close by, a place where the sick and hurting can go for care.
Each person becoming part of this mission to restore Eku’s mission hospital can become one of the Friends of Eku Baptist Hospital, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charity in the United States; a member of EKOH Foundation in Nigeria; or a member of EKOH Foundation in the United Kingdom.
All such people, moved to provide much-needed help for a key place of care, can call themselves true friends of Eku and of Eku Baptist Hospital. Will you consider becoming one too?
This is how we will restore Eku Baptist Hospital: as true friends working together.
Andrew Batey, MD President / Director
Dr. Andrew Batey founded Friends of Eku Baptist Hospital in 2019, donating his time and funds and mobilizing many friends concerned about the state of healthcare in Eku, Nigeria. Dr. Batey currently serves as the organization’s president, accountable to the board of directors. Dr. Batey was born at Eku Baptist Hospital and grew up in Eku in the days when the hospital functioned well and served the people and the public good. He went to medical school at the University of Benin in Nigeria and did his internship right back at Eku Baptist Hospital. Later, he did residencies in internal medicine in the United Kingdom and in the United States. He is now one of the senior gastroenterologists and transplant hepatologists at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. Dr. Batey and his family are active members of the community and stay connected to Eku, where his mother still lives not far from the hospital.
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
President / Director
Freeborn Ukpede, RN
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
Treasurer / Director
Florence Chokor Craig
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
Florence Chokor Craig
Director
Gare Otojare
Ogbeide Elijah, RN Vice
Florence Chokor Craig
Director
Johnson Ukpede, MD
Johnson Ukpede, MD
Johnson Ukpede, MD
Recruitment Committee Chair
Bryant Evans
Johnson Ukpede, MD
Johnson Ukpede, MD
Friend of Eku Baptist Hospital
Jeff Hallett, MD
Johnson Ukpede, MD
Jeff Hallett, MD
Friend of Eku Baptist Hospital
JUDE OLOTU - President / Trustee
Jude Olotu is president of EKOH Foundation in Nigeria and one of the foundation’s trustees. He helped start EKOH Foundation in 2019. He grew up in Jos, Nigeria, but his father is from Eku, so he spent his early childhood there. He studied civil and structural engineering at the University of Ilorin. For 35 years, he has been engaged in civil engineering consultancy and construction, working both in the field and as a manager on building projects across Nigeria. He is a member of the Nigeria Society of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers and registered by the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria. He lives in Abuja, travels throughout Nigeria, and has committed himself to building communities and people up wherever he can. His sister became a nurse at Eku Baptist Hospital at the height of its years of service to the community. More recently, she has taught nursing there.
Fred Aghoghovwia
Financial Secretary / Trustee
Joel Omonigho President
Joel Omonigho is founder and president of EKOH Foundation UK. He grew up in Sapele, Nigeria, but his mother was from Eku, and both he and his mother received important medical treatment at Eku Baptist Hospital. One of those treatments saved his mother’s life. He studied pharmaceutical science at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, interned as a pharmacist at hospitals in Benin City and Oyo, and worked as a superintendent pharmacist in Lagos. He is now a practicing pharmacist and business director in the United Kingdom. He is active in the greater London community and mentors young people to help them be at their best. He holds a master’s degree in sustainable development from the University of London and is the author of The Dis-ease of Lies, a book exploring the burdens and consequences of lying. He continues to be connected to Eku, where his aunt and her family still live.