The National Association of Seadogs (NAS), on Thursday, provided free medical services to hundreds of residents of Oluku Community in Ovia North-East local government area of Edo State.
Speaking at the Community Primary Healthcare Centre, Mr. Abiola Owoaje, NAS Capoon, said it has come to their knowledge that no matter how financially buoyant the government may be, it cannot take care of all the needs of its citizens.
He said corporate entities and individuals that are well to do must come out to contribute their part to move the country forward in whatever capacity they might deem fit, thus necessitating NAS to provide free medical services to the residents of the community.
“We do recognise that no government can do everything and no matter who much we want them to do, they don’t always have the resources to do everything.
“This is where we come in to try and give a little bit of support to the government and also highlight areas where we feel some medical services needed to be improved within the community.
“For example, we have a bit of data based on different people that we have treated over time and through this data based, we can find out the kind of issues that are very prevailing within the community and we will raise these issues with the government as well that they need to pay a little bit more attention to these things as a form of advocacy for those communities where we carry out our services,” Owoaje said.
When asked about the number of persons meant to benefit from the free healthcare services, Owoaje said NAS does not place premium on numbers but on the quality of services rendered to those who need them.
“We don’t actually put target per say, we look at the community and look at how best we can provide these services.
“So, on average, we probably find a few hundred of people coming like 500, 300 but at the end of the day, it is not about trying to get target but we are trying to provide quality service to the people but we try to make it as wide spread as possible because we do realize also that even the people that we serve, not all of them have their means to go to the hospital to get the same services that are provided,” Owoaje added.
He advised the residents of the community to always go for check-up with the view of knowing their sugar level.
“One of the things that is quite common is the High Blood Pressure that we see among our citizens and this as we all know people that often have it, they don’t really know that they have it because they don’t see any symptom not until it gets very serious and at a dangerous level.
“This is something we also advocate so that people should keep checking their Blood Pressure and sugar level as well, which is one of the key things that we provide in our services,” he stated.
Commending the NAS for their free medical services, one of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Ogeleyinbo Omolayo, said the money she would have spent at the hospital for drugs and treatment has been saved for her.
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