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From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
National Association of Seadogs (NAS) (Pyrates Confraternity) has lamented the state of the nation’s primary healthcare centres, saying most of them lack adequate drugs, funding and medical professionals to service the patients.
The NAS Capoon, Abiola Owoaje, while fielding questions from newsmen, yesterday, in Kaduna during the association’s free medical outreach to Romi community in Chikun Local Government Area of the state, said poor budgetary allocations to health sector by government, brain drain among medical doctors, among other factors are responsible for low healthcare services in communities across the country.
Owoaje said no fewer than 6,000 people in Romi community who are suffering from eyes diseases, hypertension and other ailments are expected to receive the free medical services provided by the association.
“We normally carry out medical outreach, particularly where people in a community have health issues that need medical attention. We are having our quarterly meeting in Kaduna this weekend. Wherever we are, we look for areas we can provide support to the community, and we often find out that there is always a shortage of healthcare. We now organised medical mission to take care of this, knowing that government alone cannot provide these facilities all the time.
“So, we are here to provide free health care delivery ranging from eyes problem to hypertension and other ailments that people are always suffering from. All these we are providing free of charge to the community health centre with the medical doctors of the centre attending to the people.
“As usual, there has never been enough budget provided for health care by the government. And that is why, often than not, we hear that health care facility, especially in the low income community areas is a big challenge to the people
“And we also realised the health care budget is not high enough as said by the World Health Organisation, and we feel some of these things are part of what contributed to health issues in these communities, and that is why we have come together to see where we can contribute our own quota to block some of these shortages.
“At the moment, there is no adequate funding given to health care, and that is why you see a lot of our health care professionals going abroad, and we find out that the professionals who are to man health facilities like this, you don’t see them. They have all gone to Europe and other places, and deny the people from gaining from the training they had had here in Nigeria.
“The citizens now suffer as they are left in the hands of unserious people on ground. As an organisation, we have chapters all over the world; in Europe, America, Nigeria, South Africa and so on.”
Also fielding questions from newsmen, the Facility Manager, Primary Healthcare Centre, Romi, Altine Shok, expressed happiness over the free medical outreach by NAS, saying: “It is amazing this free medical mission is happening in my facility.
“Over 6,000 people in the community are benefitting from the free medical services. I really appreciate the gesture by the organisation. We have never seen this type of gesture as we are seeing today. We don’t have enough drugs, and the facility is not spacious enough, it needed to be expanded.
“The free medical mission is the kind of thing that has created more awareness for our facility. With what happened here today, more people are going to be aware of our facility in this community,” she said.
Some of the beneficiaries who spoke to newsmen expressed happiness and prayed to God to uplift the National Association of Seadogs.
