The medical outreach by Rt Hon Toby Okechukwu, the member representing Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency has touched over 2000 lives in the area.
The outreach which is a yearly ritual by the lawmaker provided an opportunity for the people in the rural areas to have access to free comprehensive medical service.
Chief Toby Okechukwu who’s also the Deputy Minority Leader federal House of Representatives, was on ground last week to witness the success of the medical programme was conducted round the different units: theatres, pharmacy unit, test labs, diagnosis center at the UNTH Outpost, Ugbo; venue of the free medical outreach by Dr. Joseph Chigbu.
Dr. Chigbu, the team leader for Doctors On The Move Africa (DOTMA) in his remark said; “We are doing a comprehensive short term medical mission having done the needs assessment of this community.
“There is the burden of illnesses, surgical needs and so it was only proper for him to nominate such a project for his community and indeed Awgu, Oji River, Aninri Federal Constituency. This is our fourth day working in this community.”
Dr. Chigbu stated that over 2000 out patients had already been treated, which include over 87 general surgeries and over 33 cataract surgeries and commended the lawmaker for the initiative, stressing that the impact is unimaginable.
“You can see the joy on their faces. Those who could not see can now see because their old lenses are removed and new ones fixed for them. Little children come in with congenital hernias, their hernias are fixed. Now they can go back to school, they can learn and of course the farmers and traders who have such problems will be tackled and they will become economically viable to the community.
“As an organization- Doctors On The Move, we are thankful to Rt. Hon. Toby Okechukwu that has provided this platform over the years.”
In his address, Rt. Hon. Toby expressed satisfaction with the level of success recorded. He however express believe that prevention of diseases ought to be given greater attention. He also expressed pleasure that the series of outreach done in the past has yielded positive results.
The lawmaker expressed satisfaction that the medical intervention is yielding results. He said that going by the number of surgeries conducted so far, the number of persons needing help have reduced an indication that the right persons are being reached.
He further stated that the health condition of the people will improve if “we can provide some intervention regarding the challenges of rural medicine and medication.”
He said that the idea is to intervene and mitigate the challenges the people have in accessing much needed healthcare services which include lack of funds, accessibility, bureaucracy, the lack of specialists in some areas and so on.
“As a matter of fact, you know, this area is challenged. Even when you have the UNTH, it is not everybody who can go there. They have monetary issues, they have problem of access, we also have issues of specialization. And then, the number of people that flock in there and the bureaucracy and the logistics is quite challenging, so, we are happy that UNTH has this outpost here that can attend to, at least, some of the problems. This is why Doctors On The Move have come through our instrumentation to intervene.
So, the idea is to provide some succour to our people in the short term so that those who can, who may not be able to wait for permanent structure will have intervention and live long while efforts will be made to have a permanent structure in the long term.”
On what motivates him in putting together free medical outreach for the people, Rt. Hon. Toby said that it is a burden when somebody is actually sick because the person has no economic viability or contribution to make.
“The point to make is that we need to intervene constructively in which ever way we can to ameliorate the challenges of our people,” he asserted.
On the challenges of the medical outreach, he pointed at the difficulty in moving the people to the point of contact with the medical practitioners and the lack of adequate time to deal with the cases of everybody. “But we will continue to do our best to make sure that we find a way around some of these challenges,” he said.
