By Stephen Adeleye.
The Kogi Chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) on Monday offered free medical services to the staff of Lokoja Local Government in Kogi.
The Chairman of the association, Dr Kabiru Zubair, told newsmen at the programme’s venue, the Local Government Secretariat, that the gesture was part of the union’s activities to mark the 2019 Physicians Week and Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) of the association.
According to Zubair, NMA was targeting 100 workers of the local government for the free medical services.
“We are looking at the basic common health challenges in our environment, such as blood pressure for hypertension, random blood sugar test for diabetes, and body mass index to check for obesity.
“As we are aware, obesity is a major risk factor for hypertension, diabetes and some other diseases.
“We are also giving anti-ulcer drugs for ulcer patients,” he said.
He also said that the association would on Oct. 15 be donating some free items to children at the Emergency Paediatric Unit (EPU) of the Federal Medical Centre and Kogi Specialist Hospital, Lokoja.
The chairman said the union had also planned to donate some medical consumables to the managements of the two hospitals as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
He said the association would during the week also engage its young doctors (House Officers) who had just come out of medical school to guide them on career progression and other life issues.
Mrs Fatima Abubakar, Director of Lokoja local government (DLG), commended the NMA for the gesture describing it as a very good development.
“It shows that the NMA in Kogi is queuing up with Gov. Yahaya Bello with his new direction agenda on making sure that everybody is healthy.
“So, the idea is very key; you can see how our staff came out en masse to embrace the programme,” Abubakar said.
She urged the association to extend the gesture to other local governments and other organisations, saying there was no amount of free medical services that would be enough.
One of the beneficiaries, Mr Abubakar Abdullahi, thanked the NMA for the medical checkups, saying he was given free anti-ulcer drug.
(NAN)
