How medical outreach took Ido farming communities away from work

For people in Esarun, Arutu, Faleti, Fashan, Langbe, Koguo, Aba Alfa, Akinbiyi, Aba Elemu and environs, all in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State, farming is a way of life and few things can stop them from going to their farms daily.

This, however, was not the case on Tuesday as the farmers and their families rather than go to their farms, converged on the All Saints Memorial Park and Gardens at a time they should be on their farms to await the Mercy Clinic medical team of the All Saints Church, Jericho, Ibadan.

About 200 adults and a hundred children converged on the Jacob and Grace Church chapel, the auxiliary church of the All Saints, within the memorial garden to partake in the medical mission organised by the parent church.

The Mercy Clinic is a unit of the church which gives free medical treatment to the people living around the All Saints Church, Jericho and its environs and it holds weekly.

The outreach was taken to the farmers to fill the vacuum created by the absence of a standard clinic within the area and because it was earlier established that the people of the communities do not find it easy using their money to go to the clinic for medical checkups and treatment.

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And in addition to the common malaria and blood pressure screening that is prevalent in medical outreaches, the Mercy Clinic went a step ahead by providing full urine analysis and blood screening to discover any ailment that may be troubling any of the beneficiaries and also gave Tetanus shots to every individual present.

Speaking on the exercise, Emeritus Professor Babatunde Onadeko, the chairman of the All Saints Church Medical Service Committee popularly called the Mercy Clinic, who is also in charge of operations for the comprehensive health screening, stated that the exercise was a success based on the number of people that showed up which was beyond their expectations as the people are known not to leave their farms, adding that it was a good experience that people took their health seriously enough to take part in the free exercise.

“This comprehensive health screening for communities in Ido is part of our church’s activities for the 60th anniversary celebration. We felt that our church should make a positive impact on the environment and people because we have a chapel here so that the people living in the community of our chapel can also benefit from what the clinic has, been doing,” Professor Onadeko said.

“We thank the Lord that is a successful exercise, judging by the number of people that we have attended to and we are taking it a step further than screening, we are going to treat them; people who have medical issues will be taken to our centre at Jericho to continue their treatment. We expended the registration paper and had to make use of ordinary paper, this is good.

“We screened for common diseases like hypertension, checked weight and body mass index. We have also taken samples for sugar and we also went further and diagnosed a lot of diseases through the urine. This is a comprehensive screening and because this is a farming community, we decided that we want to cover them with protection against tetanus which is a very fatal disease and is common in such communities. And that is a lot of money that the church has provided; it is commendable that the church thought of this as part of its anniversary celebration,” he stated.

In his welcome address, the chairman of the 60th anniversary celebration, Mr Olumuyiwa Oyetunji, stated that the church planned the medical outreach as part of activities for the good of the people of the community, adding that it is part of the church’s doctrine to reach out to people around it to make life easier for everyone.

Some of the beneficiaries, 66 year-old Olusola Esorun and Mr Peter Ayade, a farmer from Benue who has lived in Fasaun community for 10 years, described the programme as one that has helped the community a lot, adding that this is the fourth time the church will bring a medical outreach to their community.

“We are happy they always think about us. The programme has been a great help and we are happy that the church has been helping us maintain good health,” they stated.

Mrs Tumininu Etoamaizu also corroborated this, adding that, “many people in this area do not like to go to the hospital for anything but you can see them trooping out today because it is organised for them by the church and it is free. I appreciate the good gesture of the church because it is a great help to us.”

Nigerian Tribune