• Pledge to ensure Nigerians know their health status

• Donate baby incubators to Abuja Hospital

AS part of activities to mark Rotary International’s Family Health Day 2013 in Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa, over 100,000 Nigerians have received free medical screening for Human

Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), polio immunisation, malaria, tuberculosis, eye cataract, cervical and breast cancer, and diabetes and blood pressure.

With support from Coca Cola Africa Foundation, United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), ministries of health of Lagos and Ogun states, and the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), the Family Health Day, which was marked on May 10, 2013 raised awareness around polio, HIV, TB and other non-communicable diseases.

Meanwhile, the Rotary Club of Abuja, Gwarinpa and the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) have donated three infant incubators to Gwarinpa General Hospital, Abuja.

Director Rotarians For Fighting AIDS (RFFA) Western Africa and Past District Governor for Nigeria, Olu Olowu, told The Guardian in a telephone chat: “We also want to distribute sanitary towels for girls, we want to de-worm children, we want to give mosquito nets to pregnant

women. We want to conduct family counseling and conduct promotion of child spacing.”

On what informed this humanitarian gesture, Olowu said: “This is a group of Rotarians with the objective to provide health services to the public. The aim is to encourage healthy living lifestyle for everyone. So we started of with HIV/AIDS programme looking after children who have one or no parents at all that is vulnerable children. Then we ensure that these children live in homes and those who take care of them also need to be healthy or know their health status in order to be able to adequately or comfortably take care of the children. So we decided to expand our children to reach all family members, parents, grand parents.”

Where are people supposed to be to benefits? How long is the free medical care going to be offered? The Rotarian said: “We are starting off with having a three-day comprehensive and holistic programme which involves - if we have necessary partnership that we are looking at - we will develop it into a quarterly exercise. But for now we are having a three-day programme that will reach out to 100,000. We have 78 sites we are working in Lagos and Ogun states. All the Rotary clubs are participating in the exercise.”

On the issue of funding and sustainability, Olowu said: “We are being supported by Coca Cola African Foundation and we have programme partner, which ensures the sustainability that is the CDC, USAID. We work with the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that are funded by these organisations.

Is there any links is affiliations with the FMoH or relevant agencies in Nigeria?

“The ministries of health are our partners to contribute to the programme. We have very big support from the FMoH and ministries of health in Lagos and Ogun states are working with us in the field to ensure that the exercise is well programmed to reach as many people as possible.”

Are there plans for the beneficiaries to get cheap or free treatment  after the screening? The Rotarian said: “We have designed forms that is for monitoring and referrals. Those who test positive for any of the diseases: malaria, HIV, diabetes and so on are being

referred to relevant hospitals to take care of their treatment. Here, our goal is to ensure that everybody knows his or her own health

status so we now refer them to hospitals where they get treatment.”

On whether the treatments are going to be free or subsidised, he said: “No they are not going to be free. We are offering free testing and screening. The treatment will be at the beneficiaries own cost.”

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rotarians for Family Health and AIDS prevention, Marion Bunch, in a statement said this year’s focus is on South Africa, who is being included for the first time.

Bunch said: “In 2011 there were approximately 5.6 million people living with AIDS in South Africa, the highest number of people in any country. It is expected that around 50,000 people will receive testing and counseling for HIV/AIDS over a three day period.”

The Rotary Club, is offering the free medical tests and counseling to Nigerians from May 9 to 11, 2013.

The free healthcare exercise will run in 70 sites across Lagos and Ogun states. The sites include community halls, hospitals and Rotary Centres.

Speaking during the official launch that took place at the Rotary Centre, Ikeja, the District Governor-Elect of Rotary Club 9110, Olugbemiga Olowu, described the three-day event as a comprehensive, holistic offering of healthcare resulting from strategic partnerships in line with Rotary’s commitment to promoting family health and creating awareness around diseases.

“The Rotarian Family Health Day programme is about Rotarians taking the lead through a massive health campaign and living their motto of service above self,” he said.

“With an estimated 5.6 million people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria as at 2011, it became critically important for us to garner support from not only government, but corporate partners and the media to address the problem and implement our prevention control programmes.”

The Public Affairs and Communications Manager, Clem Ugorji, speaking on Coca-Cola’s commitment to promoting wellness and building sustainable communities with like-minded organisations like the Rotary Club said that,

“At Coca-Cola, we always seek ways to empower our communities, focusing on key areas such as water, health, education and entrepreneurship. By investing in these critical areas, we aim to expand opportunities and improve the wellbeing and prosperity of our communities”.

While commending Rotary and Coca-Cola on this laudable initiative, the Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka, stressed that community based healthcare was becoming increasingly vital to tackling the scourge of diseases in the country.   He referred to the Rotary Club as mutual partners with the state government, stating that the partnership was targeted at taking health care and literacy to the citizens, starting at the community level.

“The country today is currently tasked with the responsibility of improving our health rating which has been abysmally poor in the past,” he said.

“We in government appreciate initiatives like this from private organisations because it complements our efforts in this regard. The Rotary Family Health Day is an intervention that goes a long way in making preventive healthcare available to those who ordinarily can’t afford it.”

One of the beneficiaries from the previous edition, Toyin Olaniyan, a local resident, expressed delight at the opportunity presented by the initiative.    “With this programme, Rotary is giving us rare access to tests and counseling that we don’t get every day. They should be commended for reaching out to us with this big community project,” she said.

Medical Director of the Gwarinpa General Hospital, Dr. Tony Momoh, thanked the Rotary Club for finding the hospital worthy.

“This is one facility the hospital has long looked forward to,” he said.

President of Rotary Club of Abuja Gwarinpa, Jerry Haruna, stressed that club and its partners have been giving back to the society for over 100 years.

He said: “The rate of maternal mortality is so high. It pains our heart when we hear that children die from preventable death. We thought as a club that we needed to buy infant incubators and touch our immediate environment.

“We evolved a partnership with RMRDC last year and the organisation promised to procure baby incubators and today we are seeing that come through. We have evolved a partnership for a fund for local production of incubators. We trust that this partnership would move further than this, so that we can reduce mortality rates among children.

“We need to change the course of life of children. We have lost very promising children to early death.”

Director General of RMRDC, Prof. Peter Onwualu, said: “We are here because of the partnership with Rotary.  Unknown to many, what the RMRDC does is to encourage research in all sectors of the economy, and the health sector is a major one.

“This is part of what we do. We have also supported things like the production of vaccines. Beyond that, the Council has given research grants to a number of persons who are in the pharmaceutical industries. We promote local content in everything we do. We will develop a research programme to build incubators using local material. That project is one that can succeed. I want to thank Rotary for coming up with that idea. That is what we do. When we produce locally, we call find it everywhere. There are hospitals in villages, that even something to keep the baby warm is missing. We are happy to be here. Our prayer is that this would be very useful.”

He went on: “I want to encourage Rotary. Hopefully, before the end of the year, we will be setting up that research fund and commence local production of incubators.”