Megalectrics Ltd, operators of The Beat FM, Classic FM, and Naija FM, in conjunction with Pathcare Laboratories, last Saturday at, Yaba Community Development office, held the fifth edition of its annual medical mission.
Speaking on the programme, Olamide Ali-Balogun, head of sales and marketing, Megalectrics said that it is a public social responsibility organised in association with Pathcare and other partners.
“Health is wealth, and if we look at the economy of Nigeria, we realize that times are hard. And who is going to look after all of these people? So what we are doing is to see how we can come in to meet some their medical needs in terms of having them know their numbers. At the end of the day, we want to make a country better, we want a healthy population,” he said.
He further revealed that annual, the mission caters to about three thousand people, doing several kinds of tests and screening.
“There are close to forty specialists here who examine people and they get free medication for treatable ailments. If they are not treated on sight, they are referred to partner hospitals where they can get the desired medical attention,” he added.
Also speaking, Chief Sales Officer for Pathcare Laboratories, Wale Solar, said that the mission this year is characterized by more collaboration.
We are trying to capture more that we have in the previous mission. That is the objective for this year. The turnout is large. People have come out since 5am, and we have positioned ourselves to manage them. And we ensure that everybody gets to see the relevant people.
“We are in partnership with some pharmaceutical companies who have brought free medication. We are also doing cervical screening for women, which is something very important. We’ve seen people come from far and wide which means that we are doing looking at creative ways to embrace the larger participation we are trying to get,” he stated.
A team of doctors from the United States of America has arrived for a medical mission at Ile Ife, Osun State. The 20-man collaborative team of physicians, surgeons and medical support staff is made up mostly of alumnus of the Obafemi Awolowo University, formerly University of Ife.
The team is to give free medical services at the Ooni of Ife palace; and a full day “Campus” clinics, health fair, preventive/public health activities, including screenings for diabetes, hypertension and some communicable diseases.
The week-long activities also include simultaneous surgeries at designated centres within the University Teaching Hospital by the US-based surgeons and their Ife counterparts. They are also to operate on cataract patients and do laparoscopic procedures using top-notch, state of the art and cutting edge technology equipment free of charge.
Also members of the team interested in teaching and giving lectures will be provided the opportunity to do so at the university. The team is led by Dr Olabisi Jagun, who describes her role as “a fortunate one”. It is sponsored by the Mercysaidno Foundation (an Atlanta-based Nigerian Philanthropic organisation), Ifemed Alumni Association (USA), member physicians, Friends of Ifemed Physicians and Ife Ooye North America Association (IONA).
She said, “Our team is very excited and ready to go, and we are grateful for the wonderful opportunity to give back. All our physicians and surgeons are brilliant and distinguished in their field of expertise; a few of them are leading world experts; they have all been vetted and their licenses are current.”
The team is estimated to treat between 5,000 to 10,000 patients as well as hand out over $150,000 worth of free medications and prescriptions.
Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, the Chairman of the Governing Council of the university, said the medical mission is a great thing to happen to the university and Ile-Ife city.
He said, “It fills me with joy to see distinguished physicians and surgeons in the United States remember home for this kind gesture. The Council and the entire university are proud of this wonderful support.”
It has been fourteen years since High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs, (a k a O. B. Lulu-Briggs), a native of Kalabari Kingdom, an Island of the Niger Delta, established a foundation to carter for the poor.
The multi-faceted foundation “O.B.Lulu-Briggs Foundation” operates five different programmes. Its Care for Life is exclusively for the aged who are poor ). The Free Medical Mission is for all, irrespective of age, class or gender. Under the free medical mission is also the foundation’s annual free eye test and free children de-worming programmes and rural water purification programme.
The foundation also has a robust scholarship (local and oversea) programme as well as Law School Scholarship award. This is to ensure no strata of the society is left out.
The foundation has transversed communities in the Niger Delta, including Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River and almost all the 23 local government areas of Rivers State.
But in all its mission trips, the core Island dwellers of the region (those behind the River banks) have been the least of the beneficiaries.
The reason is not unconnected with the difficult terrain of the core river-rine community and the obvious lack of health care facility in such communities to host the team for the five-day long medical treatment.
But beyond all odds, the foundation recently broke the jinx when it ferried over 70 medical and none medical personnel on a free medical outreach to Minama community of Asari-Toru.
It was a huge success, as health seekers came from neighbouring river-rine communities, to benefit from the gesture. The joy of both the beneficiaries and their benefactor at the success of the exercise knew no bound.
To the beneficiaries, it was like wonders in dreamland. They were happy they were remembered for such kindness. Their benefactor was happy that such exercise is possible in an Island community. Pa Lulu-Briggs’ long-time desire to also reach out to his own kith and kin behind the ocean has finally come through. He urged other island communities to wait for him.
•Volunteers for the medical mission
Despite the inability of the team to carry out surgery in the outreach for lack of operation theatre in the facility the exercise was held, about 2,500 patients, including paediatrics, were treated in the outreach.
The joy of the community at the event cannot be over-emphasized. This was clearly demonstrated in the reception they accorded the Executive Director of the foundation, Mrs. Sienye O.B. Lulu-Briggs, who is also the wife of the founder of the foundation on arrival to the community.
Old and young, including National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members serving in the community rolled out their drums to welcome the August visitor. They sang, danced and gyrated at the community’s water front for hours waiting for her arrival.
Mrs. Lulu-Briggs was visibly amazed at the kind of reception given her and members of her entourage. She described it as overwhelming and the best reception the team had received from any community since the inception of the foundation.
“The people of Minama are the most hospitable so far in our fourteen years of going out for the five-day free medical mission. We’ve been to almost all the 23 local government areas of the state, as well as Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom states for this programme but Minama has been the most hospitable of them all.
“This is the only community that has, apart from providing accommodation to all our over 70 resident medical and non-medical personnel for the period, but also fed us.
“Normally, we go with our food, but in this case they provided food for every one of us. Minama people are indeed the true example of the hospitality of a Rivers’ man.”
The chairman of the community, Chief Probyn Herbert Grans-Ege, had extolled the rare virtues of the High Chief at assisting the governments to carter for its citizens, especially in the areas of health care delivery and care for the poor.
Ege, who spoke through Diepreye Granville, said O. B. lulu-Briggs had used his foundation to lift the health burden of the country, and state in particular by, offsetting the high cost of accessing healthcare treatment by the indigent poor of the society mostly in rural areas like theirs.
“The foundation dared our difficult geographical terrain, which makes transportation cumbersome to bring its free medical mission to us; we are indeed grateful.
“ It is a common knowledge that health is wealth and also that a healthy nation is a wealthy nation, the health needs of any nation are of top priority all over the globe. Health care services remain one of the basic necessities of man, so long as man’s existence on this planet earth is concerned.
•People waiting to be attended to.
It is also incontrovertible fact that health services are very expensive and consequent upon this, many people could not afford their medical bills and have been sent to their early graves.
“We commend all your efforts in making life very meaningful to the down-trodden and the less privileged of the society. Your Foundation coming to Minama is a blessing to us and the communities.”
The people sought the inclusion of their indigent elders into the foundation’s Care For Life programme and scholarship scheme.
Sienye Lulu-Briggs recalled: “Since the inception of the free medical mission outreach of the foundation, this is the first time the foundation has taken the outreach to the Island dwellers.
“This is a breakthrough to O.B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation. We have been working, going to places, but we have not gone across the river to a community that is not accessible otherwise.
“When we came here the first time to check out the venue for the programme, we discovered that they are a people that are so separate, they are not the only one, none of the villages in the Niger Delta(core river-rine communities), has a hospital.
“If the present government of the state would consider and reintroduce the former Governor Peter Odili’s days of mobile hospital to villages in the across the river to take care of the sick among them.
“Although the foundation has a fully equipped mobile theatre and clinic but it is not for the riverine terrain but for communities on land.”
She expressed deep concern over the plight of the people living without any health facility.
“From our records or medical professionals and volunteers treated close to 2,500 patients consists mainly, 481 persons that consulted our general practitioners, 430 children were seen by the paediatric doctors, 143 were treated for dental problem, 326 for the eye treatment, while 1, 012 for the laboratory tests while 62 persons were attended to at the Physiotherapy section.
“However, the surgery section of this programme is not in session in this outreach, the reason being that the health facility we are using here for this outreach has no facility to carry out any form of surgery.
“This is the fate of not just Minama Communities but the entire 33 Island communities and villages of Kalagbari Kingdom, that spread across three Local Government areas(LGAs), of Akuku-Toru, Asari-Toru and Degema.
“While we note the predicament of Minama community, the World Health Organization (WHO) in its statistics of health care system ranks Nigeria 187 out of 190 member countries.”
The event also featured prostate cancer disease awareness workshop with advice to men to form the habit of going for routine blood test from the age of 40 for early dictation and cure of the disease. The disease does not present with any serious sign and symptom unless in its advance and incurable stage.
The Deputy Governor , Dr. Ipalibo Banigo- Harry, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Somieari Isaac-Harry, said: “Prostate cancer awareness session of this outreach in a hard to reach community as this is very commendable.
“This foundation has been into free medical treatment to indigent rural dwellers in the past 14 years, it is not easy task, considering the cost of accessing medical treatment is generally high, the decline in the price of crude oil in the International market has even made it more difficult, because access to funds to purchase the drugs and other consumable for the treatment is not easily come by.
“O.B. Lulu-Briggs Foundation’s free medical programme is indeed a very big support to the Rivers State Government; for us to achieve a healthy society and closeness to medicare.”
He acknowledged the efforts of the immediate past Chibuike Amaechi-led administration in achieving easy and effective medical care by his massive construction of health care facilities across the state, but noted that the present administration would do much better by improving on what is on ground.
He urged residents of the community to adopt the habit of accessing health care facilities in their communities for routine checks and also endeavour to eat right to avoid preventable ailments and deaths.
In partnership with Pathcare Laboratories, Classic FM on Saturday, August 1, held the 2015 edition of its Doctors on Air Medical Mission. Held at Yaba Local Government secretariat, Yaba, Lagos, the management of the radio station called on government at all level to give more attention to making quality healthcare services accessible to the masses.
General Manager of Megalectrics Limited, operators of Classic FM97.3 and Naija FM102.7; Mr. Deji Awokoya said that the yearly event provides free public health care for local residents.
“Doctors on Air is actually a radio programme that goes out on Classic FM on Wednesdays. So, based on the feedback we got from callers, we thought it was important for us to create an offline event where we could give the public a chance to speak to doctors and get some information from them. It speaks for itself. This is the third edition and as the years go by, the turnout increases,” he said.
The teeming crowd that thronged the venue also received Medical counselling and advice from a team of volunteer doctors available for the exercise.
Dr. Pamela Ajayi, creator and host of the Doctors on Air radio programme and founder of Pathcare Laboratories, also seized the opportunity to appeal to the government to continue with intensive screening at the nation’s borders and airports to avert another Ebola virus outbreak in the Nigeria.
“The focus is on preventive healthcare, educating people on how to pick things up early. We have pharmacists who support us. The essence is to know certain things. We must know our health numbers. It is all about empowerment. Empowering people through knowledge so they can take control of their health,” she said.
The Doctors On Air Free Medical Mission is an annual CSR put together by Pathcare Laboratories, Classic FM and Naija FM in partnership with Lagos state Blood donation service, Bridge Clinic, Mopheth Pharmacy, The Eye doctors, Medplus, Healthplus, Fidson Healthcare, Megacare limited, Skye Dental, Chike Okoli Foundation, Access Bank, Leadway Assurance, CDMA LUTH and many more.
The seven-day free medical mission of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State ended at the weekend.
Doctors defied their strike and joined the programme organised by NDDC in conjunction with Golspin Health Care Foundation at Asarama Health Centre.
NDDC’s Head of Corporate Services Ibitoye Abosede and leader of the medical team Prof. Adelayo Ejele hailed doctors who volunteered their services, adding: “The common saying is that health is wealth, but for us in this health mission, health is better than wealth.”
Ejele said 1,479 cases were treated, including 21 surgeries, 108 dental cases and 365 laboratory investigations. He said 156 patients were screened for HIV/AIDS and two tested positive.
“Fortunately, Ebola is not here yet and we pray it nevers get here,” he added.
NDDC’s chief executive officer, who was represented by Chief Ephraim Etete-Owoh, Rivers State representative on the commission’s Governing Board, said the agency was determined to improve the communities.
He urged the people to always cooperate with contractors to ensure prompt completion of projects.
Speaking for Asarama community, Chief Appolus Ewaye thanked NDDC and the doctors for the programme.
The free health mission has been taken to several communities in the nine states of the Niger Delta in the last one month.
Former Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Dr. Leke Pitan, and his friends, under the aegis of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (AGPMPN) and Medical Women Association of Nigeria (MWAN) Lagos State Chapters, will from Monday, August 4, commence a free medical outreach to all 20 local government Areas and 37 local council development areas of the state.
The programme will be run by qualified, experienced and specialist doctors from the three medical professional bodies. They will attend to various health challenges of the general public and dispense drugs to them free of charge at each location.
The team will also include experienced eye specialists who will conduct on-the-spot eye screening, dispense drugs and give glasses free of charge to residents in the various communities.
In addition, there shall be free cancer screening, hypertension and diabetes screening, urine tests, general check-up and body mass index verifications.
Shedding light on the initiative at his Ikeja office at the weekend, Dr. Pitan described the exercise as his own way of giving back to the society from his God-given area of knowledge and specialisation.
“This is not the first time my friends and I are undertaking this sort of community assistance. So when my friends came up with this idea again, I naturally said yes since it’s obvious it will benefit a large number of our people, especially at the grassroots, and on a long time basis. This is clearly beyond politics. It’s a practical way of adding value to people’s lives beyond the immediate. I am very proud of my friends for offering themselves freely to improve the health status of all Lagosians,” he said.
It will be recalled that the NMA and AGPMPN have just endorsed the political aspiration of Dr. Pitan at separate ceremonies.
Dr. Pitan is one of the leading aspirants under the banner of the All Progressives Congress(APC), jostling for the governorship ticket to contest the 2015 elections in Lagos State.
The NMA, at its just concluded 54th Annual Congress, unanimously passed a motion moved by Dr. Adedamola Dada to endorse the gubernatorial ambition of Dr. Pitan.
Also, the AGPMPN, at its special congress held recently, has also endorsed the political aspiration of Dr. Pitan.
The Annual General Meeting of the NMA is the highest decision-making body of the association. It comprises all the executive members and elders of the association.
Dr. Pitan is a National Honours Rolls Awardee of the NMA.
The free medical mission will kick off in the Alimosho Federal Constituency on August 4. The exercise will have Dr. Pitan personally leading the team.
