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Tag: medical care

  • NYSC member offers medical care to 71 widows in Bayelsa

    NYSC member offers medical care to 71 widows in Bayelsa

    Ms Joy Omotola, a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on Monday offered medical care to 71 widows in Ovom Community in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa.

    newsmen reports that Omotola, who hails from Ogun, said in Yenagoa the gesture was part of her contribution to improve the welfare of aged widows in the society.

    Omotola alongside other corps members, who are in the medical profession, screened the widows for diabetics and high blood pressure.

    The exercise, which took place at the community town hall, included free consultation and check up for the widows, donation of wrappers, food stuffs including bags of rice and bags of garri.

    She noted that widows were vulnerable members of the society, who apart from suffering from the death of their spouses also had mental health illnesses such as depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetics and stroke among others.

    According to her, widowhood is among the most stressful of all life situations and requires more psychological and behavioural adjustment than any other life transition.

    Omotola said that the various challenges faced by widows provided justification for proper meal, good healthcare and good clothing.

    She said that after a critical evaluation of the situation of widows in the community, there was the need to quickly reach out to them as they were helpless and this burden birthed the project “New Year for Widows”.

    She said that the project was to empower the widows in the community with some basic provisions and create a healthy lifestyle for them to support each other through this period of their lives.

    “The project is also to celebrate their strength and encourage them to keep pushing for the coming years and teach them how to take care of their all-round wellbeing.’’

    Mr Ibesemiye Silver, the Chairman, Ovom Community Development Committee, speaking on behalf of the community and the widows thanked Omotola for her kind gesture.

    The community leader also prayed to God to grant her blessings in all her future endeavours beyond her service year.

  • Government denies El-Zakzaky, wife access to documents to travel abroad for medicare

    Emman Ovuakporie

    One month after the Kaduna State High Court acquitted and discharged the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El- Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenat Ibrahim, have been denied their international passports to seek medical care abroad.

    This was made known in a statement issued on Friday by Ibrahim Musa, the President Media Forum of the group.

    Musa stated that the medical records of the couple show that they both suffer from deteriorating health conditions and ought to have sought medical assistance outside the country.

    He noted that they are seemingly being held back by some powerful persons in government who are holding on to the international passports of the couple.

    The statement reads partly, “Four weeks after being discharged and acquitted by a Kaduna State High Court, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, and his wife, Malama Zeenah Ibrahim, are yet to travel abroad for medical treatment as their international passports are still being held by security agencies and a new one has not been issued to them.

    Both the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Department of State Security (DSS) have denied being in possession of the international passports of the couple.

    “It is a known fact, however, that during the botched medical trip to India as granted by the Kaduna High Court, their international travel documents were promptly seized on arrival by these security agencies. Thus, who did they hand over to? That wasn’t too long ago not to remember or know.

    “Were these international passports handed over to certain powerful persons in government, as is being speculated, who are using their powers and influence to further detain the Sheikh and his wife thereby denying them the freedom granted by the Nation’s courts? We hope this is not another evil machination of those in the corridors of power in Nigeria to deny the couple access to medical treatment.

    “We wish to remind the general public that for the past almost six years, medical reports have indicated that their health condition has deteriorated and as such needed to travel overseas for treatment. That was the basis for the Kaduna state high court granting them medical leave which was later scuttled by the government in 2018.

    “Muslim brothers and sisters of the Islamic Movement and other lovers of justice across the world are getting agitated once again because of these obnoxious developments including what appears to be placing the duo under house arrest by Buhari regime.

  • Buhari blames health workers for going abroad to seek medical care

    Buhari blames health workers for going abroad to seek medical care

    President Muhammadu Buhari has named the unfriendly attitude of health workers across Nigeria as a major reason why prominent Nigerians seek medical care outside the country.

    The president, who was represented by the Ministry of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this at the official commissioning of an International Conference Centre and Telemedicine Hall and six other projects at the Federal Medical Center (FMC), Abeokuta, Ogun State.

    “We still get all too often for comfort, disconcerting reports of not friendly attitudes of staff to patients, reports of unhygienic and housekeeping standards that leaves something to be desired even in the presence of sophisticated equipment and well qualified doctors.

    “Such simple failings like this, are more frequently responsible for the loss of confidence of the end users in our health system than even the lack of equipment. They are the triggers for the distrust that will lead people to go on medical tourism.

    “We have a lot of work to do in that area and I want to believe that the managers of our hospitals after such laudable, fantastic infrastructure investment we now begin to pay attention, not only to improving staff harmony and welfare, but to retraining health care givers for even better professionalism that deliver service in a productive and courteous atmosphere based on the lessons we learnt from our traditional African hospitality,” he said.

    President Buhari also disclosed that his administration is currently embarking on the infrastructural development of all it’s tertiary hospitals so as to position them for quality health care delivery to the people.

    He added that the National Health Insurance Scheme is awaiting a law that would make the scheme compulsory for every Nigerian.

    “We are carrying on infrastructural development at all our tertiary hospitals to position them for quality health care delivery to all persons, the National Health Insurance Scheme is awaiting a new law to make health insurance mandatory,” Buhari said.

  • Some freed Chibok girls to undergo surgery – FG

    Some freed Chibok girls to undergo surgery – FG

    Federal Government, on Thursday, said some of the schoolgirls released by Boko Haram militants over the weekend would need surgery for various ailments.

    The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Jummai Alhassan, who said this at a press conference in Abuja, stated that the girls were undergoing treatment that would take a few weeks to complete.

    No fewer than 276 schoolgirls were abducted over three years ago, while 82 were released after negotiations involving the Swiss Government, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Federal Government on one side and the terror sect on the other.

    Twenty-one of the girls were released in October 2016, but had yet to be reunited with their parents.

    The minister said results of the medical tests so far conducted on the 82 Chibok girls, who were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014, had shown that some of the youngsters needed to be operated upon.

    She stated that the medical screening, being carried out on the girls, would be completed between two and three weeks.

    “The 82 Chibok girls are currently undergoing medical screening in Abuja. Some of them need surgery; this should be completed in two to three weeks,” she said.

    Alhassan stated that before the arrival of the 82 girls, the Federal Government had been taking care of the 21 previously released girls and four babies.

    She added that the 21 girls came back in bad shape and spent almost two months under medical care and were handed over to her on December 22, 2016.

    The women affairs minister explained that the parents of the 21 girls were reunited with their daughters within one week of their return in October 2016.

    “Upon return, all the 21 Chibok girls said they wanted to go back to school, but that they didn’t want to go to school in Chibok,” she said.

    According to her, the girls travelled to Chibok for Christmas in December 2016 as soon as they emerged from medical care and spent two weeks there.

    She said although they were scheduled to travel to Chibok again for Easter, security situation at that time was not conducive enough, so their parents were invited to Abuja.

    Alhassan disclosed that it was the choice of the Chibok girls and their parents to stay under the care of the Federal Government in Abuja.