By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has provided free medical treatment to over 15,000 patients across the Bauchi South Senatorial district that houses his federal constituency of Bogoro, Tafawa Balewa and Dass.
The gesture, according to Dogara’s legislative aide, Ilya Habila, will also be extended to the two other senatorial districts in the state where thousands of people will also benefit from the programme tagged ‘democracy dividends’ to the electorate.
The free medical services programme is being carried out by a medical non-governmental organization (NGO), ‘Doctors On The Move Africa’ that will be rendering services such as patient’s consultations and drugs, diabetics and hypertensive screening, reading glasses and cataract operation..
Other services rendered by the doctors are surgeries such as Lipomas, hernia, fibroids and goitre. The medical team at the outreach also provided services such as ultra-sound scanning, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis screening as well as public health campaigns.
Team leader of Doctors OnThe Move Africa, Dr. Joseph Haruna Kigbu, who Monday spoke at the official flag off ceremony of the medical outreach at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital in Bauchi, said that the medical outreach will run for four weeks in the local government areas of Bauchi, Dass, Tafawa Balewa and Azare in the state.
“By this same time last year, the doctors saw over 20,000 patients and conducted 430 cataract surgery.In this second phase of the outreach, we will do general surgery which include both minor and major surgeries.We will also be scanning patients and do surgeries such as cataractectomy (eye surgery), hysterectomy(operation of the uterus) and myomectomy(Fibroid surgery).We also provide 200 reading glasses for patients”
Kigbu stated, “This project is sponsored by Speaker Dogara who believe that such federal government intervention will go a long way to help the poor masses, especially that the universal health coverage has not been attained. The NHIS scheme has not reached the people at the grassroot, so an intervention of this nature still have a place in contemporary healthcare delivery system in Nigeria”.
Dr. Joseph Kigbu, a former member of the National Assembly, commended the speaker for sponsoring the programme which, he observed, enabled several poor patients across the state and other states of the North Eastern states of Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe to benefit.
Dogara who represents Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency of Bauchi State at the National Assembly, had undertaken similar free medical outreach programmes in the past eight years for his constituents