As part of efforts to complement the Federal Government on communal healthcare interventions, Zed-Faith Foundation International, on Thursday, offered a free medical screening in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The medical interventions were carried out in Kabusa community of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) by the Zed-Faith Foundation, in partnership with Nigeria Red Cross.
The free medical services were offered in the areas of health check and screening, drugs and medical counseling, laboratory testing, health talk, hypertension and diabetic screening, to the residents of the community, including women and children.
The group also donated materials such as clothings, footwears, among other things, to the residents of Kabusa community.
The country director, ZFI, Mr. Chinnaya Innocent, said the free medical services were part of the Foundation’s social responsibility programme and a way of supplementing the efforts of Federal Government.
He said the gesture, which is being executed by the organisation, was aimed at assisting the poor and the needy at the grassroots, adding that the Foundation would extend such humanitarian intervention to other parts of Abuja.
He said: “We’re here today to render a service of free medical service to the Kabusa village and this will be going on to different villages. We’re not being sponsored by the government, state government or local government. It is being sponsored 90% by the chairman/CEO, the founder of this Zed Faith Foundation – Daniel Onyeka Newman and other contribution from his friends and business associates.
“Well, as long as I am concerned, it has been a passion to help humanity. He has been doing it right from the time he was in secondary school and as time goes on, the passion keeps on expanding to reach out to especially the poor, the children, the elderly, and the woman in need. So, that’s why we’re here today to help this village because we believe that the government presence is not always here.
“So, we take it upon ourselves to take the risk to sacrifice to be here to take care of them to check their BPs, their blood sugar levels and they have a free will of donations of cloths and shoes to give to them.”
Similarly, the Health Coordinator for Red Cross, FCT, Anthony Akpan Okoro, said: “We’re telling them about how to stay safe from malaria. We are also in partnership with the Primary Health Care to and I am sure that the primary health care sometimes back distributed nets to communities.
“So from their nets, putting nets in the environment, clearing their bushes, stagnant water, making sure the environments are clean. These are ways to make sure you stay off malaria, you stay off any problem that could bring sickness to the environment. So, carrying out health promotion is the aim and the essence of us coming here.”
Commending the gesture of the Foundation, the Kabusa community chief, Samuel Kpowu, called on the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, ensure that communities are major targets of medical interventions.
“These people that have come with this mission of health, I really appreciate them. I am very grateful because we can not lay our hands on the government’s hospital now. Their healthcare doesn’t reach masses like the way NGOs normally do, especially this one that came to our place.
“My call to the federal government or state government or local government in terms of things like these, they should reverse back and do what they were doing before. If it is possible, they should come back to the roots,” Chief Kpowu stated.
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