Hon. Toby Okechukwu, member representing Anniri/Awgu/Orji River Federal Constituency, has commenced the free treatment of over 2, 500 persons in his constituency.
The initiative which was flagged off at the UNTH Outpost, Ugbo in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State on the second of November saw the treatment of persons with eye problems including surgeries, gynecological check up and surgeries involving fibroid, Hernia, appendix, etc were carried out by specialist doctors as well as the distribution of free medicine after examination by specialists.
The free treatment services which catered for about 2758 patients from the three local government in the constituency was expected to last longer but the initial sit-at-home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, truncated that.
Speaking during the flag off of the event, Hon Toby Okechukwu said the event which is an annual ritual is because of his firm believe that a healthy people is a wealthy people stressing that he would do anything in within his reach to ensure that his people live a wealthy life.
He said: “This is an effort to complement the efforts of the state government regarding health care in the state, and this is for rural community dwellers. This has been done in Achi Joint Hospital, Cottage Hospital Nenwe, Awgu and Ihe General Hospital to ensure we spread it across our communities make the right impact.
Speaking on his expectations for the outpost, he said “Our expectation is that it will be properly equipped as a hospital so that instead of going to UNTH in town, people can come here, see medical doctors, see pharmacists, and see nurses and receive adequate healthcare.
“This is essentially an intervention, and we will continue to do this annually. Unfortunately, the security situation will not allow doctors on the move to stay as long as they would want to but we will continue this next year”, he said.
Hon. Dr Joseph Haruna Kigbu, the team leader of ‘Doctors On The Move’ said this is not their first time of working with Hon. Toby Okechuukwu as they have worked with him for the past 7 years.
Commenting on some of the works they did this year during the outreach, he said “ We’ve given out free glasses to those who have eye problems requiring eye glass, and helped those with bigger eye sight problems such as glycoma.
“We have also perfumed several surgeries in this past 3 days for people with health issues such as appendicitis and fibroid, and all this is being done by our specialist doctors.
Dr Joseph who said it wasn’t just ok to perform surgeries on the patients and leave them, added that they have put in place measures for follow up on checkup on the patients.
“We have post operative patients, and there are doctors drawn from various hospitals including UNTH them will look after them and look out for minor ailments that may arise and they could also remove their stitches by the seventh or eighth day as the case may be. So there shouldn’t be any problem on that aspect.
“We are fully equipped, usually those patients when operated on, we observe them and once they are fit, we send them home and we instruct them to come back after seven or eight days for stitch removal. Some of may not even need to come back for stitch removal depending on the type of stitch we do on them because they get absorbed on their own, especially for pediatric patients so they only need to come back for the nurses and doctors to check their body system essentially.”
He maintained that Toby deserve some credit for seeing the nerd for an outpost station where health workers can easily administer primary health services before referral to Ituku-Ozara or bigger hospitals.
He encouraged the people to continuously come for medical checkups as it is very important and can help prevent/manage some ailments.
Speaking with some of the villagers who partook in the outreach they had nothing but thanks to give as some of them who had ailments which would have caused them thousands to treat were treated freely, and those who believed their sickness to be a death sentence were treated instantly.
Onyinye Ezilo one of the patients with eye problems described the treatment she was given as a miracle as it helped her sight instantly
Onyinye said “I came here because of my sight. I find it difficult to read and when I read I can’t normally see things written in small letters. I came here and saw the doctor free of charge and am ok now. I encourage others that have not come here to try their best and come here”, she said.
Some of the beneficiaries expressed joy for the initiative and thanked the lawmaker for the show of love.
Mr Ifeanyi who went through appendicitis surgery was filled with joy and thanked the Honourable for this kind gesture.
“As I am looking at them, they know what they are doing because there is no complain from people who they have operated on, including me. As I saw the treatment I asked the doctor if am free to go back to my home town and he said am free but within a week time I should come back for them to lose the stitches.
“I prayed before coming here and God have already answered my prayer by using them. I have also benefitted from Okechukwu’s outreach last 2 years and am happy that he is still doing it up till now, all I can say is thank you Sir, and I will try all my best to see him any day to thank him myself”, he said.