The wife of the Ogun State Governor, Mrs. Bamidele Abiodun has put smiles on the faces of over 120 residents of Sagamu, Ilisan and Aiyepe, through a medical mission, where surgeries were performed on life threatening ailments, to give new lease of life to the beneficiaries.
Coordinated by the office of the Governor’s wife and her pet project, Ajose Foundation, the seven days medical mission organised in collaboration with a team of medical doctors from the United States of America, also carried out health checks on different ailments, including blood pressure measurement, followed with the distribution of drugs and vitamins to patients.
Some of the surgeries include thyroid and other intra-abdominal surgeries.
The Governor’s wife, who noted that the mission was organised due to the state’s commitment to efficient healthcare, added that the Ajose Foundation is also committed to?helping people who cannot afford medical expenses.
“When we came in, we discovered that a lot of people had been waiting since last December and other several months for medical intervention but couldn’t afford to pay for the bills. We are partnering with these doctors – about 20 of them, who came from the United States.
“They have been doing this mission for about 10 years now, we just jumped on the bandwagon when we came on board in 2019 and we have been supporting them since then. The purpose is to help people who can’t afford their medical bills,” she said.
While noting that over 120 surgeries were performed during the period, Mrs Abiodun, appealed to all Nigerians to always take note of changes happening in their bodies.
“A lot of times, it always comes late when people seek medical intervention. We are doing a lot on cancer, which is so important, especially to people living in the rural areas. For instance, there was a lady who had bruises on her legs and didn’t know what it was. She believes it was mere wounds, and kept on treating it until it started expanding. By the time we eventually find out about it, she was already on stage four cancer.
“ If she had known the importance of seeking medical intervention as quickly as she noticed the changes, she wouldn’t have ended up as such. I think that is the case in many of the rural areas; people don’t observe changes in their bodies to seek medical interventions on time
“We are grateful to our partners who volunteered, spent their personal money to travel down to the country. It wasn’t only Nigerians doctors that we had; we also had foreign doctors who attended to our people. The kind of reception they received gave them the willingness to come back in six months to help our people.”
The Chief Medical Director of the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Dr. Oluwabunmi Motunrayo Fatungase, where the surgeries were performed, said through the collaboration with the expatriates, the beneficiaries had access to combined teams – local and international medical experts. “We were able to collaborate with one another, we were able to learn from each other, we also got to know much about the advancement they brought into surgical interventions, patients also benefited from quick surgeries.
“It was a sacrifice from our end because for the period, revenue was low on our side, but we took pride and joy in it that we have a little break to give back to the society, so it’s like Corporate Social Responsibility to the community from the hospital too.”
The Team Leader of Naykas Healthcare (the expatriates), Muftau Kasunmu, revealed that they succeeded in performing all kinds of intra-abdominal surgeries, except fibroid. “Intra-abdominal surgeries relating to pancreas, liver, thyroid and any kind of swelling of the head but unfortunately when we got here, there were so many thyroid cases that we had. This forced us to do as many as 13 to 15 daily. Unfortunately the Oro festival affected our operation, we couldn’t work till 10pm like when we started the mission.
“The kind of surgical procedure we did, normally here, takes two to three days but due to the collaboration, the patients were on their feet within two hours – that’s the biggest impact we made, in the form of knowledge transfer.”
One of the beneficiaries, a 65-year-old clergyman, Mr. Olanrewaju Popoola, commended Mrs Abiodun and the expatriates for the gesture.
“They conducted an anemia surgery on me for free. It was December last year that I noticed that there’s something swollen on my thigh and gradually it increased in size until April when the severe pains started. I want to commend the team also that the good Lord will bless them and they’ll never experience sadness in their lives.”
