From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
National Association of Seadog (NAS) has offered free medical services to hundreds of residents of Oluku community in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State.
Speaking at the community primary healthcare centre, Abiola Owoaje, NAS Capoon, said no matter how financially buoyant the government may be, it cannot take care of all the needs of its citizens.
He called on corporate entities and individuals that are well to do to contribute their parts to move the country forward in whatever capacity they deem fit, thus necessitating NAS for carrying out the free medical services to the residents of the community.
“We do recognise that no government can do everything and no matter how much we want them to do, they don’t always have the resources to do everything.
“This is where we come in to try and give a little bit of support to the government and also highlight areas where we feel some medical services need to be improved within the community.
“For example, we have a bit of data based of different people that we have treated over time and through this data base, we can find out the kind of issues that are very prevailing within this community and we will raise these issues with the government to pay a little bit more attention to these things as a form of advocacy for those communities where we carry out our services,” Owoaje said.
When asked about the number of persons meant to benefit from the free healthcare services, Owoaje said NAS does not place premium on numbers but on the quality of services render to those who need them.
“We don’t actually put target per say, we look at the community and look at how best we can provide these services.
“So, on average, we probably find a few hundred of people coming like 500, 300 but at the end of the day, it is not about trying to get target but we are trying to provide quality service to the people but we try to make it as widespread as possible because we do realise also that even the people that we serve, not all of them have means to go to the hospital to get the same services that are provided,” Owoaje said.