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By Simeon Mpamugoh
Concerned by the worsening economic situation and the need to build healthy citizens, the lawmaker representing Oshodi/Isolo Constituency 2 at the National Assembly, Hon. Okey-Joe Onuakalusi, recently took his free medical outreach and other people-oriented projects to Ejigbo Local Council Development Area of Lagos State.
This edition of the project was in conjunction with the National Productivity Center and Boamt Consult Limited. It took place at the Nnokwa Community Hall, Ejigbo, Lagos and was the second in the lawmaker’s one year as a member of the 10th National Assembly.
Constituency members thronged the venue with various health challenges, 70 percent of them hypertension-related diseases.
The lawmaker noted that it was common knowledge that “health is wealth,” adding that the social impact of the project was that “a healthy nation is translated by how healthy the citizens are.”
He said: “One of our priorities, which is among the eight agendas of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr. Tajudeen Abbas, is to ensure that our people receive quality healthcare and welfare, which is very paramount to the House. For me, if one is sick and treated with drugs, and the person becomes healthy, his life begins again.”
He said that the House had always designed programmes to attend to the healthcare challenges of the citizens, especially in these trying times in the life of the nation: “Nigeria is passing through challenging moments and it behooves some of us to factor in medical outreaches in our constituencies so we can attend to the health-challenging matters of our people who ordinarily could not afford to go to the hospital.
“The essence of this is that, by the time a patient accesses some medical diagnosis and gets some drugs, he/she will be relieved and the next burden is to continue with his/her work.”
He maintained that the 10th National Assembly believed strongly in healthy citizens, pointing out that the Speaker’s position was that any project that was being executed in any constituency should take into account the health of the people because “if one installs solar light, builds good roads without healthy citizens, who will walk on the roads?” He assured his constituency of doing his best to attract all manner of health projects to ensure that constituents are healthy.
On the role of the NPC in the project, he explained: “This is one of my constituency projects, which must be domiciled with a ministry or agency. So, we domiciled our own with NPC. They are the ones that advertise for the professionals who carry out the contract of executing the projects. If you check the appropriation documents, you’ll see the NPC carrying out a health outreach in Oshodi/Isolo local government area. Our role is to ensure that the people are not shortchanged, and the reach is widely spread.”
He said that the previous edition, which took place in Okota, had more than 3,000 people who enrolled for different medical challenges. “In eye cases alone, we had 500 people who presented different degrees of eye problems, with free eyes glasses given out to them. Our responsibility is also to rotate the locations and the more the number, the more we attend to them,” he added.
He, however, appealed to the consultants to extend the exercise to other locations, saying that the essence of the project was to reach more people: “One could see that they have enough drugs and manpower to attend to more than 5,000 people. So, I think we may have another free medical outreach before the end of the year.”
In less than one year, the lawmaker has equally touched the lives of youth in the constituency in a variety of ways, thus minimizing crime rate and drug addiction in the area. He said: “We have youth empowerment programmes to train our youth and empower them with computer devices. As the medical outreach was going on, there were equally mechanic training going on for our youth.
“I have a special slot to train 30 youth groups for modern car repairs. It is in public domain and those interested in the programme are expected to apply.
“The successful candidates will be shortlisted for training for six months. And at the end of the day, they will be selected and empowered with startup toolkits. This is beside the youth educational training programme in place.
“Once they apply through the advertisement placed on our constituency platforms, the successful candidates will be shortlisted and they will go for the training. It is an open call, one does not need to know anyone to participate.”
He also narrated how he nominated someone who went to Taiwan for training on improved farming: “I had the privilege of nominating someone to go to Taiwan recently for training in improved farming. The beneficiary is not my relation. We threw the coin and it fell on the lucky person who was with us from the beginning and that was how he went to Taiwan on an all-expenses paid trip and spent about four weeks learning about agricultural improvement.
“There are plans to send more young people overseas for short courses of two to three months locally and internationally, because the person that is trained cannot come to ask for money to buy foodstuffs. He has been empowered and the multiplier effect is that he can replicate it to other people.”
The lead physician of the medical outreach, Dr. Abba Awandi, urged the audience not to be scared of visiting doctors whenever they fall sick, adding that doctors were the right people to see to solve health problems.
He also noted that most people were scared of visiting doctors and hospitals because of high cost of treatment and the detection of other scary illnesses. “Every human being should check his health status constantly to avoid crisis in the system because, nowadays, we are eating a lot of things that are not good for the body system. If we keep on without checking the body system, one will see that there are a lot of deposits that will affect the body negatively. So, it is good for every living being to go for regular check up of his/her vital organs,” he advised.
He noted that the commonest illnesses facing people in our environment today are malaria, typhoid and hypertension, which he claimed was high on the radar.
He said: “We also have kidney problems on the increase. Malnutrition has become rampart. You’ll see a healthy man suddenly slumped and died and when you conduct a check, you will find out that it is high blood pressure related. There were no such cases before but now people are developing high blood pressure, and other illnesses we were not used to before has emerged on the scene.”
Awandi called on government to intervene in the situation, noting that with initiatives like the free medical outreaches, the public could easily check their blood pressure. He said: “In the course of the outreaches we have had so far, we discovered that 70 percent of the beneficiaries were people with high blood pressure with age ranging from 40-45 years.
“Today, there is cholera outbreak. So, we must embrace hygiene and keep ourselves hygienic. If the environment is polluted, it breeds a lot of diseases. Most of the patients today are developing Peptic Ulcer Disease (PUD) because most of the foodstuffs we eat are not well preserved. So, if we can take care of our environment it will reduce a lot of bacteria spread.”
A representative of National Productivity Center, (NPC), an agency in the ministry of labour and employment, Mr. Andrew Asoya observed that medical check ups were very important for healthy living. He said: “It is important that we take care of our body fits and ensure that all the vital organs in our body are in line and correct.”
Asoya, a botanist, likened the body to the car that will fail when one did not put the right battery. “With a check up, a patient would understand the body doesn’t work 24/7. It has a time it needs to relax, work effectively and efficiently, which doing the right thing is to know the time to put all the medicines into the vital organs so that the brains, nose and eyes will be able to communicate very well or else the vital organs will relapse.”
He urged the audience to embrace the eating of vegetables, adding that spinach, pumpkin and okra were medicinally good for the body. “Vegetable nourishes the body better than medicine if taken in a balanced set,” he stated.
A chieftain of Labour Party in Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Chief Godwin Ekezie, described the leadership style of the lawmaker as people-oriented. He said: “Hon. Okey-Joe Onuakalusi had the first free medical outreach two months ago at Okota area of Lagos State, which lasted for three days. This time around, the train has moved to Ejigbo for the duration of two days because he believes that when people are alive and healthy they can make optimal progress in the socio-economic and political terrain.”
While assessing the programmes in Okota and Ejigbo, he noted that the exercise in Okota was wonderful, adding that the Ejigbo’s witnessed more improvements.
He commended the project saying: “It is a welcome development. The coming of the lawmaker in Oshodi/Isolo Constituency 11 has brought fresh air and transformation to the people of the constituency.
“The lawmaker carries everyone along. And so far he has shown serious interest in the health, education and empowerment of individuals living in the constituency especially the youth. In the area of foodstuffs, he distributed different sizes of bags of rice to members of the constituency recently, with beans on the way. So, when a leader provides free health care, education and foodstuffs to his constituents, he is already transforming the system differently from the former representative of the constituency even though it is not all about party affiliations but individuals, capacity and willingness to serve the people.”
One of the beneficiaries of the exercise in Ejigbo was a 63-year-old Mrs Agnes Nwakanma, who said that the lawmaker has shown that he has the capability to serve people of the constituency. “I score him high in his one year experience in the National Assembly. He has earned my vote for the next election. The cost of drugs are very high and we are getting it free of charge. The exercise is helping to improve the health need of the beneficiaries as some of them testified to me,” she said.
