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By Young E. Freeborn, Warri
Two non-governmental organisations, Prince Oghenerukevwe Okifo Foundation (POOF), Edirin Goru, and Neo Black Movement of Africa (NBM), Agbarha-Otor chapter, recently conducted free medical check-up/treatment for indigenes and residents of Agbarha-Otor community in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State.
The NGOs noted that the event, with the theme: ‘Operation Know Your Health Status,’ was aimed at helping members of the public know their health status and provide necessary treatment or referrals where needed.
Fielding questions from newsmen during the medical event, secretary of POOF, Mr. Desmond Okpako, said the programme was their own way of giving back to society, adding that they were ready to give all possible medical assistance to the patients.
His words: “What we are doing today is to provide our people with all the medical assistance possible. It is a continuous programme. We decided to start with Agbarha because it is the headquarters of constituency I in Ughelli North, and secondly we gathered that the entire Agbarha town does not have a government General Hospital.
“The CEO of POOF happens to be an Oghara- Agbarha indigene and he saw it as a pain and decided to take up the challenge to see how he can help salvage the situation. In our scope of operations, we are bound to do the same in other places but there must be a starting point which is what we are doing here today, we will carry out the same programme in other communities after now.”
The secretary further said, “There is no limit to our target reach, as many that come we will attend to them. We know that there are some persons that are sick and need medical attention but because of financial constraints they will be managing the situation until it get out of hand, so we are here to help. All what we are doing here is absolutely free, no charges of any kind, just come and you will be attended to. We did a lot of publicity to create adequate awareness because everything we are doing here is free, the test, the drugs are all free.”
Leader of the medical team, Dr. Bright Omozegbai, explained that they there to conduct general health screening for the people, adding that most persons don’t have time for their health due to their work.
He said, “Most of the people don’t have time for their health, it is just work, work all the time. So I think this is a medium to meet the people of Agbarha-Otor and know their health challenges. Most people don’t know their blood pressure, they don’t know their sugar level and all of that, so we help them to check so that they don’t come down with complications.
“Those who have issues, we pick them early and give the treatment, where there is any complicated case we can’t handle, we do what we can and make referral, although for now we have not discovered any such case that we cannot handle. Most of them look like clinic cases, they walk in and walk out.”
Some of the participants that spoke to our correspondent after receiving diagnosis and medications, commended the NGOs for bringing the programme to Agbarha-Otor and called on other NGOs and well to do individuals in the society to emulate such gesture.
A participant, Chief Oghenekaro Adjarho, while commending the NGOs said, “I heard the announcement that they were going to do test and as a member of the community I came and discovered that they are doing it as they have said. I have done my BP, my blood sugar levels and have also talked with the doctor. I want to commend them and say more people should do this because not everyone has the well withal to go to doctors, some people don’t even have transport to go to General Hospital in Ughelli because we don’t have any General Hospital here in Agbarha. The private ones that are here are cut throat.”
Another participant however called on both the Delta State government and the Federal Government to consider Agbarha-Otor for a general hospital.
“I want to call on the Delta State government and the Federal Government to consider Agbarha-Otor for a general hospital, considering the number of both public and private facilities that are here. No doubt, a lot of people die because they don’t have money to take them to Ughelli Central Hospital for treatment. But if we have a general hospital here, it would be easy to rally round to gather the money to help such patients and victims.”
