Paul Orude, Bauchi
No fewer than 77 patients suffering from different ailments have undergone surgery, in Bauchi State, under the free medical treatments being provided by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, in conjunction with Doctors on the move Africa.
Addressing journalists at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, in Bauchi, on Wednesday, leader of the team of Doctors on the move, Dr. Joseph Haruna Kigbu, said it was the third phase of the medical outreach.
Kigbu said that the projection of the scheme was to attend to 10,000 patients at the end of the Programme.
Said he, “The Programme will run for 5 days which is from Monday 19th of March to Friday 23rd of March and In the last 3 days we have given out over 4,500 cards to patients.
“Similar programme was conducted by the speaker last year where over 20000 patients were screened for various illness and 430 cataracts surgery were carried out also last month over 1,000 patients also benefited from the outreach” he said.
According to him, “We operated four goiter patients, each of this surgery if it were to be done in a private hospitals. They will pay between N1 to N1.5 million but the surgery was done free of charge.
“Also some women who have evidence of cancer in their wombs were operated on. We quickly remove it because they have had sufficient children so we go ahead to remove the uterus so that they don’t develop full blood cancer, we did 6 of these surgery and also did fibroid surgery”
On the situation at the Eye Centre, Dr. Kigbu continued, “We had some logistic issues, but they were able to do 28 cataract operation but they have recruited 190 patients.
“The last month”s outreach we did 247 cataract operations successfully, these are Nigerians that are blind because of cataract, today they can see, they have become economically viable, they are useful to themselves, to the community and they can contribute their quota to Nigeria because they can now see, they can go back to their farms, trade and be useful to their family
“At the present we are working with goiter surgeons, people who specialize in fixing goiters problem, this is a very delicate operation. We have obstetricians and gynecologists, we have Eurologists, Peadiatric surgeons, working in different unit. The Speaker brings in expert doctors to offer quality health care at the urban and rural areas.
“Speaker Dogara is passionate about the health care of people of Bauchi state and Nigeria. This is the third round of Speaker Dogara free health treatment. We were here last year, last month and this month. Third phase for Bauchi town alone. We have also gone to other centres like Federal medical centre Azare and the comprehensive health centre built and furnish by the Speaker at Bogoro Local Governemnt of Bauchi State.
“We are in partnership to offer care and fill the gap in the health care system of Nigeria. The National Health Insurance Scheme has not be able to capture all Nigerians and so this kind of assistance becomes inevitable to the yearning of the many sick in our local community,” he said.