No fewer than 1,000 adults and children benefitted from the medical outreach organised by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, The Calvary Area Headquarters, Province 89, Oshodi, Lagos State, on Saturday, as part of activities to mark its 27th anniversary.
The activity, which has been held in the community for the past 10 years, featured free medical consultations, healthy living counselling, blood pressure checks, blood sugar screening, deworming and eye tests, among others.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the outreach was organised in collaboration with Chike Okoli Foundation, Emzor Pharmaceuticals, and Pharmatex Industries.
The programme coordinator, Mr Bode Martins, told our correspondent that the outreach was a platform created to give back to the community by providing access to free medical healthcare services to the residents, adulst and children.
“In the last 10 years, we have served over 5,000 beneficiaries and we have done that in partnership with Emzor Pharmaceuticals and Pharmatex Nigeria Limited. They provide the drugs for us free of charge. We also have medical doctors who volunteer their time and expertise.
“It is meant to reach out to people who do not have the financial resources to visit the hospital for medical attention. This is done to make life easier for the people as part of the church’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. As we depend on them for membership, we also want to give care to them,” he added.
A representative of Emzor Pharmaceuticals, Theresa Obioha, commended the church for the initiative and expressed the commitment of the company to continue to engage in such impactful collaborations with the church to provide relief to provide relief vulnerable members of the public noting that the medical outreach had been going on for a long time.
“Emzor has been in this partnership for a very long time. We provide different kinds of drugs for different health challenges. The outreach is helping the community, because some have not checked their blood pressure for a long time. So, we do a series of tests for them and give them the drugs for free of charge. About 85 per cent of the people we met in this outreach are hypertensive,” she disclosed.
One of the medical doctors attending to the beneficiaries, Dr Rotimi Adesanya, advised the government to adopt the pattern of organising medical outreaches for members of the community.
The doctor who acknowledged the efforts of the government in building health centres across wards said, “It is high time the government took medicare to meet people like immunisation. Nothing is stopping the government from taking health workers from house to house so as to check people’s blood pressure. It is not capital intensive. This may encourage people to visit the hospital for further medical examination.”
A beneficiary, Mrs Adeola Adekunjo, said the programme was beneficial to her as it made her more aware of her health status.
She said, “The programme is beneficial to me. If not for this I would not have known some hidden ailments inside of me. So, it makes me to be more aware of my health.”
Speaking in a similar tone, another beneficiary, Josephine Mike, said, “It is a good programme. Some of us here did not know if we were sick or not until we were able to come for a medical check-up and we knew our health status. And when they checked us, they knew what step to take.”
The chairman of Abajiodu Community Development Area under which the community falls, Oludayo Adeboye, described the programme as laudable to the community.
He also claimed to have lost count of similar programmes organised by the church in the past.
“The programme is a laudable one and I have lost count of the medical outreach and other programmes they hold to help the community. Beyond preaching the word of God, it is a church of the community and they feel the pains of the community and we appreciate what they have been doing.“
He also urged the government to adopt such a pattern, adding that such awareness would encourage people to go to the hospital for medical check-ups.
