From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Hundreds of children, pregnant women, and aged among other groups at Angwan Shekarau, Mother Cat Community in Kachia Local Government area of Kaduna State on Monday benefited from the National Youth Service Corps’ Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers (NYSC-HIRD) themed; “NYSC Kaduna: Improving the Health of Rural Community”.
The rural healthcare for rural dwellers was a brainchild of NYSC leadership developed some years ago to complement the government’s efforts in addressing the problem of dearth and inadequacy of health facilities and personnel in rural areas, with thousands already benefiting.
Declaring the activities of 2023 HIRD open at Local Education Authority Primary School, Ngwan Shekarau, Mother Cat Community, Kachia, Kachia local government area of Kaduna State, NYSC State Coordinator, Mr. Hassan Mahmud Taura, who spoke through Assistant Director, Community Development Service (CDS), Kaduna Office, Mr Shepyen Cletus Naanman restated the commitment of the scheme to national integration and unity.
According to Shepyen, since its inception in 1973, the National Scheme has been an indispensable and veritable instrument of national development across all the economic sectors including education, health, rural infrastructure, and agriculture among others.
“In the area of infrastructure, very remote and inaccessible communities have been linked up or connected to other communities through the construction of pedestrian bridges and culverts by Corps members carrying out Individual or personal CDS.
“Similarly, a large chunk of our Corps population is usually assigned to the
educational sector, where many schools in both urban and rural areas are heavily dependent.
“In the health sector, Corps medical personnel are deliberately posted to rural communities where there is, regrettably, a lack of sufficient health facilities and personnel, and we are doing quite well at that too”, he said.
He however appealed to Corps members hosts to continue to accord them the necessary support and assistance to enable and motivate them to do more for them.
In an interview with the newsmen on the sideline of the programme, Mai Angwan, Mother Cat Community, Mallam Sadiq Ya’u thanked the NYSC and Corps medical team for choosing his community for the medical outreach, restating the commitment of his community to treat Corps members and the staff of the scheme as part of them.
“We thank NYSC and Corps members for coming this far just to offer us free medical services. We will continue to see Corps members and others as part of us”, he said.
On her part, a women Leader in the Community, Hajiya Safara Dahiru Ibrahim described the visit as commendable and timely, “we are happy about this free healthcare service. We wish it could be a monthly intervention because we have a lot of pregnant women and some of them are not going for antenatal care.
“We also have several children, aged and people with disabilities who are low-income earners. You know what that means when we have the challenge of out-of-pocket medical bills to pay due to our weak health system in the Country. We thank and wish NYSC and our young graduates all the best”, she prayed.
Corps Doctor, Gizoh Solomon highlighted prevalent ailments among those tested to include malaria, Typhoid, arthritis, peptic ulcer disease, hypertension, and bacteria conjunctivitis which cause reddish eyeballs in the infected person.
“We have drugs for them after diagnosis. We have only one severe burn case and I have quickly referred the child to the General Hospital, Kachia for proper treatment”, he said.
Photo: Corps medical team attending to basic health needs of rural dwellers in Kachia on Monday.