Over 2758 patients received treatments during the recent free medical outreach organised by the member representing Aninri/Awgu/Orji River Federal Constituency, Hon.Toby Okechukwu.
The outreach which held on Tuesday November 2, 2021 at Awgu Local Government Area, Enugu State witnessed a large turnout of rural dwellwrs.
The flag off of this year’s event at the UNTH Outpost Ugbo in Awgu LGA featured such services as eye treatment and surgery, free gynecological check up and surgeries, fibroid, Hernia, appendix and others, all handled by specialist doctors.
The 2758 patients who ve from.yuebyhtee local government area that make up the constituency were operated upon, given free drugs after medical checkup.
The outreach which was billed to last more than three days was cut shot due to sit at home order by IPOB .
Speaking prior to the event, Hon Toby Okechukwu stated that his reason for hosting the free medical outreach annually is because his belief that health is wealth and as such would do anything in his reach to ensure that his people live a wealthy life.
He said there are some interventions needed to be carried out to help those in the rural communities who may have health challenges but do not have the fund to solve their health problems “though we cannot help everyone at the same time.”
He also expressed displeasure that the outreach was cut shot due to the sit at home order declared by the IPOB
“Iam sad to see that this exercise which was supposed to still continue to the end of this week is being cut shot due to the sit at home order by the IPOB which is expected to commence on friday 5th of November.
“This is an effort to complement the efforts of the state government regarding health care. And it’s deliberately meant to be done in rural communities. This has been done in Achi Joint Hospital, it has also been done in Cottage Hospital Nenwe too, and also been done in Awgu General Hospital, and Ihe and we are doing it to spread across our communities to make sure that it has the right impact.
“Today we are here at Ugbo and the UNTH health care workers are going to test this facility as they have gotten an outpost for this area and for rural communities.
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 reassuring the villagers.
Hon. Dr Joseph Haruna Kigbu, the team leader of ‘Doctors On The Move’ who were the doctors on duty there said that this is not their first time of working with Hon. Toby Okechuukwu as they have worked with him for the past 7 years.
On some of the works they did this year in the outreach, he said “ We’ve given out free glasses for 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 and checkup on the patients.
“Doctors On The Move Africa have worked with Toby for the past 7 years at the Cottage hospital Nenwe, we have worked at St. Mary’s hospital. Today we are at UNTH Outpost Ugbo. This is a new health center here and Toby deserve some credit for this. The man deemed it fit for there to be an outpost station where they can easily receive primary patients before referral to Ituku-Ozara.
“We have a network, as you can see we have a few of their doctors from UNTH working with us. There are also 2 medical officers that are posted to this center, they come here Wednesdays and Thursdays so they are also coming to work with us during this outreach.
“So if we have post operative patients, these doctors 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 upon, 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.
Speaking on the poor health behavior of Nigerians, he encouraged the patients to continuously come for medical checkup, stating that it is very important. You don’t wait till you fall down in the market because of hypertension before you go to the hospital. You can prevent yourself from falling down by regular checkup on your blood pressure and taking the necessary drugs.
“We will continue to encourage them in this aspect. We also call on the government as a matter of deliberate policy to ensure that the National Health Insurance Scheme works.”
