Pyrates gives free medical care to residents of Kaduna community

-Seeks priority for primary healthcare centres

The National Association of Seadogs Pyrates Confraternity, has provided free medical care to residents of Romi community in Chikum Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

The NAS Capoon, Mr Abiola Owoaje who flagged off the medical mission lamented the deplorable state of Nigeria’s state primary healthcare centres.

According to him, most primary healthcare centres in the country lack adequate drugs, funding and medical professionals to service the patients.

Owoaje in an interview with journalists identified poor budgetary allocations to the health sector by the government, brain drain among medical doctors, coupled with other factors are responsible for low healthcare services in communities across the country.

He disclosed that over 6000 people in Romi community who are suffering from eye diseases, hypertension and other ailments are expected to receive the free medical services provided by the Association.

“We normally carry out medical outreach particularly where people in a community have health issues that need medical attention. We are having our quarterly meeting in Kaduna this weekend. Wherever we are, we look around areas that we can provide support to the community, and we often find out that there is always a shortage of healthcare. We now organised a medical mission to take care of this, knowing fully well that the government alone cannot provide these facilities all the time.

“So, we are here today to provide free health care delivery ranging from eye problems to hypertension and other ailments that people are always suffering from. All these we are providing free of charge to the community health centre with the medical doctors of the centre attending to the people.

“As usual there has never been enough budget provided for health care by the government. And that is why often than not we hear that health care facilities, especially in the low-income community areas, are a big challenge to the people.

“And we also realised that the budget provided for health care is not high enough as said by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and we feel that some of these things are part of what contributed to health issues in these communities, and that is why we come together to see where we can contribute our own quota to block some these shortages.

“At the moment there is no adequate funding given to health care, and that is why you see a lot of our health care professionals going abroad, and we find out that the professionals who are to man health facilities like this, you don’t see them. They have all gone to Europe and other places, and deny the people from gaining from the training they had had here in Nigeria.

“The citizens now suffer as they are left in the hands of unserious people on the ground. As an organisation, we have chapters all over the world; in Europe, America, Nigeria, South Africa and so on.

“Within Nigeria itself, we have branches in the states of the country where we carry out medical missions. As we do this we also inform the government that the people are in dire need of better health care facilities, better professionals and more funding for health care”.

Also fielding questions from newsmen, the facility manager, Primary healthcare centre, Romi, Mrs Altine Shok expressed happiness over the free medical outreach by NAS, saying, “It is amazing that this free medical mission is happening in my facility today.

“Over 6000 people in the community are benefiting from the free medical services. I really appreciate the gesture by the organisation. We have never seen this type of gesture as we are seeing today. We don’t have enough drugs, and the facility is not spacious enough, it needs to be expanded.

“The free medical mission is the kind of thing that has created more awareness for our facility. With what happened here today, more people are going to be aware of our facility in this community”.