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He Risk Factors In The Hostels
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background To The Study
A
safe place of living supports one’s abilities, is easy to use, makes
one feel comfortable, can bring happiness, and also help one develop
his/her potentialities so as to lead a successful life. The place of
living that doesn’t meet these criteria can be considered as an unsafe
place home. An unsafe home increases the likelihood or probability of
accidents, injuries, diseases, and illness occurring. Health
and wellbeing are affected by many factors, a bulk of which is present
in the homes (where people live). These factors do not operate in
isolation; they often co-exist and interact with one another (Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare, 2012). The school hostel is the home
of students anytime they are in school. It is where they eat, sleep,
bath, play, read, cook, and perform all other basic things which are
said to be done at their homes. According to Dazio (2003), you
have to know what your risks are in order to fix them. So, the first
step to improve health and safety is to find your risks. This report is
one of the tools that can help to carefully analyze risk factors in our
school hostels. Universities are expected to house, not just academic
activities, but the students seeking knowledge in various fields of
endeavour: student’s accommodation should be catered for, as well as
their wellbeing. Alaka (2007) viewed student’s accommodation
beyond mere proposal for development, to embrace the physical structure
offering bundles of services either as a facility from which the social,
psychological, and physiological activities are attained, or one
developed strictly for leisure, as an affordable and safe accommodation.
Jinadu (2001) identifies the psychological, physiological, facility,
and security requirements as four important qualitative needs that
me3asure the adequacy and habitability of the student housing. Bach
(2001) also embraces other measures like healthy, safe, and sanitary
shelter provision as necessary to harness student’s educational,
cultural, and recreational needs. Aligned with these descriptions of
student hostelling, Onyike and Uche (2010), and Egwuom (2010), have
identified the minimum hostel requirements to include bed/mattresses,
writing/reading chair and table, closet, wardrobe or cupboards, or chest
of drawers, blinds and curtains on windows, laundry rooms, study rooms,
TV lodges, outdoor recreational spaces like
baseball/basketball/volleyball courts, computer laboratories,
convenience stores, recycling or waste disposal room(s), shared or
individual kitchens, shared or individual toilets and bathrooms, water
supply, electricity supply, gas supply, high speed internet services for
room use, cable TV services, and 24hours security personnel.
The vanguard newspaper of November 21st 2012, reported that fire gutted
two rooms in a male hostel in the College of medicine, University of
Lagos, Idi-Araba. As recorded, at about 10am, room 648 of block 6 in
Alliakilu hostel was caught up in flames, and later spread to room 647.
It was recorded that there was no fire extinguisher around; the only
available one was in the hostel manager’s room (who was not around at
the time). Also, it was stated that there was no water on the third
floor, so, students had to go downstairs to get water which they used in
fighting the fire. An occupant of room 648 said that that was the third
time the room was going up in flames, and the student said, the cause
was likely due to power fluctuation. Another fire incident
occurred in room 547, Saadu Zungur hostel; block A, of Bayero
University, Kano male hostel on the 9th of December 2011, which was
speculated to have been caused by an electronic gadget left unplugged.
As a matter of fact, there was no fire extinguisher, so students had to
rush to the room with buckets of water to put out the fire. The
occupants of the room denied using anything that was prohibited, save an
extension board. It is clear, from the above, that ignorance
and negligence on the part of students and school authorities have a
role to play in increasing risk factors in university hostels.
A study carried out by Amali, Indinyero, Umeh, and Awodi (2012)
revealed that, of all the 213 female students tested in the University
of Agriculture, Makurdi, over 95% (204) of them had at least one urinary
tract infection. This agrees with the findings of David (2005), who
suggested that, at least 1 in every 5 adult women experience urinary
tract infection, and about 50% of all women will experience it at some
point I the lives. According to Amali et al (2012), the high prevalence
of pathogenic organisms observed in the urine samples in this study, may
have resulted from the unclean state of sanitary environments in the
hostel, as well as careless and dirty habits among the students,
probably due to damaged toilets and bathrooms. The health and
safety of students in our university hostels are at stake if
stakeholders (students, school authorities, and government) do not
recognize and counter these risk factors that pose a threat to student’s
health and safety. It is therefore imperative to study the risk factors
in our hostels, if we want to restore them to standard.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This study is designed to find out the risk factors in the hostels, with the opinions of University of Benin undergraduate hostel residents as a case study. In carrying out the study, one hundred and fifty (150) copies of questionnaire designed by the researcher, and approved by the supervisor of this research, were administered to one hundred and fifty (150) students randomly selected from the five (5) halls of residence in the University of Benin (thirty (30) for each hall ... Continue reading---
