The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele has called on the 36 state governors in the country to increase investment in healthcare to tackle the rising mortality rate at the grassroots.
Bamidele bemoaned poor access of many Nigerians to quality healthcare, noting that most citizens often died of treatable diseases on account of poverty and poor access to robust healthcare.
The Senate Leader, represented by his Senior Legislative Aide, Bunmi Oguntuase said this in Ado Ekiti while rounding off the second phase of his Free Medical Outreach across five local governments in Ekiti Central Senatorial District, where 9,400 people benefited.
A total of 6,600 residents of the district had earlier benefited from the first phase of the programme undertaken in partnership with the Industrial Arbitration Panel, thereby increasing the tally of beneficiaries to an aggregate of 16,000.
The beneficiaries were diagnosed and treated for ailments like hepatitis, hypertension, hernia, visual problem, diabetes, hernia, and free eyeglasses for those suffering all manners of visual impairments.
To tackle the recurrence of this dangerous scenario, Bamidele urged state governors to prioritise the health needs of those at the grassroots, where over 70 percent of the population reside.
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” What we are doing is to give succour to those being afflicted by diseases and who don’t have the means to seek medical treatments. Let me advise our governors to invest more in the primary healthcare sector which remains the closest to the poor masses.
” Going by what some of the beneficiaries said, most of them had been experiencing the sicknesses for years, but today, they have been treated.
“Those with chronic health issues had been referred to better hospitals and Senator Bamidele is ready to foot the bills to give our people the dividends of democracy they deserve”, the Senate Leader said.
He promised that the programme is going to continue to provide safety nets for some of his poor constituents.
Applauding the Senate Leader for the free health programme, the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Adejugbe, said what Senator Bamidele was achieving for Ekiti further buttressed the fact that having a ranking federal lawmaker can be beneficial to the state.