A one-day Free Medical Outreach was recently held by the Benbow Deck of the National Association of Seadogs(NAS) led by its Capoon, Dr. Chris Ekiyor, in partnership with RAHI Hospitals Ltd, Benin.
The free medical outreach was organised to commemorate Nigeria’s 62nd Independence Anniversary with two dentists, two medical officers, two laboratory scientists, two optometrists, eight nurses and two pharmacists on ground to attend to the multitude of people that benefitted.
More than 122 patients benefited from the outreach which was held at the RAHI Hospitals Ltd
premises located at Country Home Motel Road, Off Sapele Road, Benin City.
According to Dr. Ekiyor the medical outreach was among other reasons meant to provide preventive and curative treatment for common conditions in the community; provide free health care to the less privileged members of the community in the spirit of chivalry and to refer those who require specialized treatment as necessary.
Some of the things benefitted by the patients who participated in the programme which extended to almost ten days extra as a result of continual response were three unit PPMA prosthetic bridge; three unit partial denture; twenty routine dental extractions; thirty scaling and polishing; 74 free reading glasses dispensed; twenty cases of pterygium and cataract diagnosed and referred to an ophthalmologist; eye medications dispensed.
There was also surgical intervention for a 54-year old patient that presented on account of acute appendicitis; three pregnant women benefited from free antenatal care (ordinarily, it costs about N50,000 for such registrations); three unit denture for a sales girl and two unit PPMA for a young lady. A total of 124 outpatients were seen with medications dispensed.
In a chat, Dr. Ekiyor said, “it is a misconception to say to say that the Pyrates is a troublesome organisation. The Pyrates that I joined is building capacity for weak communities, building intellectual capacity and intellectual property for society.
“It is a global organisation with civilised intellectuals organising themselves.
“The Pyrates that Professor Wole Soyinka founded was the Pyrates I just described now and it is still in existence today challenging the status quo. If asking questions is what they mean by formenting trouble so be it.
“We are not a gun shooting group; we are not a killer group; we are not a thug group. We are a group of intellectuals, professional bodies put together, well registered and well recognised globally. We even have a NAS Day in a particular state in the USA.
“What happened on the 1st of October was part of our national sail programme in the spirit of the national celebration. The branch where I am Capoon, Benin City branch known as Benbow Deck carried out what is normally done by NAS – free medical.
“Every year we do free medical across all the flagship. The various branches will do their own and the national does four. We just did ours. There was a partnership between Benbow Deck and RAHI Hospitals Ltd.
“I took the liberty as the CEO of RAHI to insist that since we have a theatre it was opened for any emergency surgical case that could present itself. Incidentally, an elderly lady of 54 years presented with threatened appendicitis that was about to rupture. So, we went in and did that surgery at no cost to the patient. Fully sponsored through the collaboration of NAS Benin City branch and RAHI Hospitals Ltd.”
Dr. Ekiyor asserted that henceforth the programme would be done every year and would even be expanded beyond a day if the situation calls for it as it happened in this year’s programme where patients were still been attended to many days after.
