A London-based charitable organisation, Women of Virtue International Initiative has offered free health care
delivery to over 300 patients with various ailments in Ojoto, Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State.
According to the founder of the initiative, Dr Felicia Okoye, rural dwellers in many parts of Nigeria have been abandoned to their own fate with little or no care for their health and general welfare while politicians of various categories live in affluence with fleet of cars in their garages and other range of luxuries.
“How can one politician have up to 36 cars and houses here and there, but these rural people, especially the women and children wallow in abject poverty to the extent that they cannot even take care of themselves when they are sick, they cannot afford to feed very well and most of them eventually die in pains and sorrows. This is very bad and man’s inhumanity to man. It is this situation that moved me to provide the succour to them to the extent I can,” Dr Okoye who was filled with emotion said at Ifeadigo market square, Ojoto, where her recent free medical outreach took place.
She explained that the non-governmental organization began operation about 14 years ago, helping widows in various dimensions, but later added the free medical programme because of the degeneration of health conditions of the locals with no means of helping themselves or ignorant of that.
She noted that the charity work had necessitated her visiting home regularly from London with the most vulnerable people as her target.
Recent edition of the free medical outreach lasted three days where qualified nurses recruited from home and abroad took their time to check the blood pressure and other medical examinations of the beneficiaries who were given quality drugs accordingly.
“It is important to invest in women and children and they are the most vulnerable people. What we do here is to give a holistic care to the patients which could not be done in most hospitals. Our target is also to make the beneficiaries have ownership of their health, to see that they visit hospitals when they fall sick other than indulging in self-medication which we know has been the practice amongst them. We talk to them to discourage them from self medication even though we know it is the by-product of poverty,” Dr Okoye said.
TheSun
