By Bello Abubakar
Bauchi
About 77 patients suffering from different ailments have undergone surgery in Bauchi State under the free medical treatments provided by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.
The team leader of Doctors on the move Africa, Dr. Joseph Haruna Kigbu, disclosed this at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital in Bauchi, on Wednesday.
He said that this was the third phase of the medical outreach carried out by Dogara.
He explained: “In this third medical outreach, our projection is to see 10,000 patients at the end of the programme. The programme will be run for five days which is from Monday 19th of MArch to Friday 23rd of March and in the last three days we have given out over 4,500 cards to patients.
“Similar programme was conducted by the speaker last year where over 20,000 patients were screened for various illness and 430 cataracts surgery were carried out. Also last month over 1,000 patients benefited from the outreach.”
According to Kigbu, some of the patients who underwent surgery had goiter which is swollen neck disease, adding, “we operated four goiter patients, each of this surgery if it were to be done in a private hospitals, they will pay between 1 to 1.5 million naira but the surgery was done free of charge. Also some women who had evidence of cancer in their wombs were operated on. We quickly removed it because they have had sufficient children so we removed the uterus so that they don’t develop full blood cancer. We did six of such surgery and also did fibroid surgery.”
On the eye centre, Kigbu said, “We had some logistic issues, but they were able to do 28 cataract operations. The last month 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 units. The Speaker brings in expert doctors to offer quality health care at the urban and rural areas.
“Dogara is passionate about the healthcare 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 Government of Bauchi state.
“We are in partnership to offer care and fill the gap in the healthcare system of Nigeria. The National Health Insurance Scheme has not been able to capture all Nigerians and so this kind of assistance becomes inevitable to the yearning of the many sick in our local community.”