Rotary Clubs in District 9125 in collaboration with Silver Cross Hospital have taken free medical outreach to Guidna community in the Federal Capital Territory, where over 500 women and children benefitted.
The organisers during the event in Abuja on Saturday said the outreach was supported by Rotary 9125 Maternal and Child Health Committee and Eye Care Aid Foundation.
The District Chair, Mrs Lovina Okorn-Ntui, Maternal and Child Health Committee, District 9125, said that the women received mosquito nets, free scan services, deworming of children, eye checks and distribution of eye glasses, among others.
“The outreach is in response to one area of focus of Rotary International which focuses on providing high-quality health care available to vulnerable mothers and children.
“Owing to the economic situation in the country, the clubs decided to provide the medical intervention to the less- privileged and vulnerable groups that could not afford regular healthcare checks.
“The essence of today’s programme is to fulfill the area of focus as it concerns maternal and child health, safe delivery for women, safe breastfeeding for women and their children as well as healthy living for women and children.
“We will be enlightening them on safe delivery, issues surrounding safe breastfeeding as well as its importance.
“We will be giving them treatment for preventable diseases such as malaria fever, other common diseases that affect women and children, among others.
“There is no other health facility here aside this one, so we are collaborating with the owner to provide the necessary heath services to the women and children,” she said.
The Chief Medical Director, Silver Cross Hospital, Dr Patrick Ezie in his address noted that the gesture was to assist the poor and needy in the community.
“We came together and decided that we need to flag-off this kind of intervention for women in rural communities because we identify that a lot of these women are not able to get the type of care that they want for basic problems.
“We will be providing free medical care for them, the health education is already going on, scan the pregnant women free of charge, carry out testing on HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, malaria, typhoid and we will provide drugs for them.
“We will screen the women on cervical and breast cancer, any one that we notice has any issue, we will do our best to manage or refer to the appropriate level of care.
“So we want to use the little resources that we have to support these indigent communities,” he said.
Also speaking, Mr Adesuwa Agbontaen, the President, Rotary Club of Asokoro and Chief Executive Officer, Eye Care Aid Foundation, noted that the medical intervention is to give back to the society and assist indigent communities with basic healthcare services.
“One of the things that we do in Rotary is to carry out projects, as we have more than 44 clubs in Abuja and we are all doing one project or the other, which is carried out on weekly and on monthly basis”, he said.
The partnering clubs were; RC ABUJA; RC ABUJA KUBWA; RC KEFFI; RC KARU; RC ASOKORO; RC Abuja CBD; RC ABUJA CAPITAL TERRITORY; RC ABUJA MUNICIPAL; Rotary Club Mid-Town; RC. RC MAITAMA; Rotary club of Apo FCT; Rotary club of Abuja Urban
