No fewer than 25 doctors from Yobe State have offered free medical and
healthcare services to returning residents of Buni/Yadi community.
It would be recalled that the community’s hospital and healthcare centres were destroyed by Boko Haram
insurgents in 2014.
The mobilizations of doctors were made by three non-governmental
organizations, which include Mai Goje Foundation, Smile Mission and
Edushine to implement the Saturday, Community Healthcare Outreach
(CHOR) to returning displaced persons.
Dr. Mohammed Goje, the chairman of Foundation, said that the doctors came from various places including Kano, Abuja, Lagos, Maiduguri and
Damaturu, the state capital, to provide services to liberated
communities in the state.
His words: “The decision to mobilize the medical team to this community; was borne out of the fact that there is no single
Functional medical facility in the area; since the Boko Haram destruction of General Hospital, Buni-Yadi.”
He disclosed that the free medical outreach targeted 300 residents for treatment but over 1,000 people with various ailments; however turnout for the “free medical and healthcare services.”
Dr. Saleh Abba, who led the medical team said that specialists including gynecologists, pediatricians, dentists, Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) and others attended to patients, who had returned, after the community was liberated by the military in 2016.
He said, “We also carried out minor surgery operations, consultations and other services ably assisted by pharmacists, nurses and laboratory scientists.
“The outreach is offering the service for just one day which unfortunately is grossly inadequate considering the large number of patients in this town.”
Ali Usman, who benefited from the free medical outreach, urged the Federal and state governments to provide the community with a temporary medical facility before the destroyed hospital and other health centres are rebuilt.
“Two years after our return to this liberated Buni/Yadi community, we have no medical facility, as they were destroyed in the three-year insurgency. Some of our women died from avoidable circumstances in child birth because we had to travel to Damaturu to access hospital,” he lamented.
He also appealed to the state government to introduce temporary and mobile clinics to provide medical services to the returning displaced.
