Sen. Babajide Omoworare representing Osun East Federal Constituency has saved members of his constituency from various forms of illnesses which they could not afford to treat.
The senator through a health fair tagged “Ilera Loro” (family Health Fair) held in his constituency in Osun East, tested and treated over 1,600 people of different illnesses.
Some were treated of eye defects, blood pressures, urinary infections, among others, while 25 who required minor operations had been referred to the Teaching Hospital at no cost to the patients.
Speaking with our correspondent after the fair, the Senator said that the import of the free health care service was to cater for those “who genuinely could not afford medicare”.
“This is not the first time but the fourth time we are doing this fair.
“We are doing it because we know that there are people who cannot genuinely afford medicare and we know that now it is even worse because of the recession.
“With the recession, the purchasing capacity of our people has reduced: when they go to teaching hospitals, they will be attended to but it would cost them a lot of money.
“So if we can take that cost off them by bringing the doctors from the teaching hospitals, we are of the view that that would save a lot of lives and we want to do just that.
“We treated all those who were found to be sick and gave out a lot of medicines and there were referrals to the teaching hospitals for minor operations which we are also going to undertake.
“There were about 25 persons that required such minor operations that would each cost between N80,000 and 250,000 depending on the condition for which the operation is being carried out.
“People that came were over 1,600 and we had all sorts of testing: from urine tests to blood test and eye tests.
“We had to even stop registering people for testing so that we would not have more than we can handle.
“But the health fair is continuous, next time we would be at another location and we hope to take more people there,” he said.
The Senator thanked the Association of Resident Doctors for their support to make the health fair a success while also commending all those who donated drugs for the programme.
He said that he was yet to ascertain how much exactly was spent for the fair but added that the level of impact on his constituents was very encouraging.
Omoworare acknowledged the support resident doctors in the teaching hospitals as well as some donors of drugs.
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