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RAHI takes free medical health care to rural communities

By Alemma-Ozioruva Aliu, Benin City
26 January 2016   |   11:44 pm
SUCCOUR came the way of wearied rural dwellers in communities across the Niger Delta region, as a non-governmental organisation interested in medicare, has restored hope to many sick patients in Edo, Delta, Cross River and Bayelsa states

RAHI

SUCCOUR came the way of wearied rural dwellers in communities across the Niger Delta region, as a non-governmental organisation interested in medicare, has restored hope to many sick patients in Edo, Delta, Cross River and Bayelsa states

The group, Rural African Health Initiative (RAHI) said with technical partnership, it would soon embark on dental care operations in Kenya, later in the year.

With support from the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman, Amnesty Implementation Programme, RAHI and a team of 75 volunteers have been attending to not less than 500 patients daily in these communities.

The team led by former President of Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and former commissioner in Delta State, Dr. Chris Ekiyor attended to the health challenges of the riverine Ijaw-speaking community of Ajakurama in Ovia South West Local Council of Edo State, who are predominantly farmers, fishermen and artisans.

The people trooped out in large numbers to Ajakurama primary health center, to avail themselves of the opportunity despite the harsh weather condition throughout the duration of the outreach.
A youth leader in the community said the entire Egbema people were happy with the wonderful job the RAHI team had done and for bringing succour to them.

Ekiyor told The Guardian in Benin City that the team would soon visit Rivers and Ondo states “Since November, we have visited Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, and Cross River states. By our findings, the government needs to do more on health. We have gone to places where there are no hospitals, no health centres and then we go in with at least 35 core medics and other volunteers totalling not less than 75 persons. We also engage youths in those communities we go to. Sometimes we convert dining tables to theatre tables. ”

All we need to do is to maintain very clean environment conducive for the surgeries.”“The minimum patients we have treated in a day is 500, out of which sometimes we have 17 surgeries in a day. We see almost a 100 dental cases per day.

“The SA has seen the need to key into this kind of partnership and only recently, he said we needed to do more by way of documentation of these developments, which would also help government in policy formulations. There is also the enlightenment part that goes with what we do. We are already working on a partnership that will take us to Kenya for dental care. Amnesty office has keyed in and we hope that other government agencies and department would do same. We are ready to go to the North- east if we have partners. We think health should be subsidised.”

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