No fewer than 25 doctors from the US, Canada and France are to participate in the free medical outreach put together by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda.

The doctors are to be complemented by other medical personnel in many fields drawn from Nigeria and abroad.

Flagging off the ceremony at the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) on Monday, Yilwatda said that the medical outreach is in support of reforms initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in health care, especially with strategic interventions that extends medical services to the vulnerable and underserved communities.

The 14-day medical outreach, according to him, will be done across the Northern zone of Plateau State, starting simultaneously at Vom Christian Hospital, Vom, and Sunnah Hospital, Angwan Rogo, with the flag-off at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, Lamingo.

He said, “I would like to thank all the people who are involved in this program, for agreeing to support this program, and also some of the donors from the U.S. and other countries who contributed, not just in the fact that they brought material in, but also the entire population who are coming out to ensure they meet the benefits of this program.

“Already we’ve done a pre-medical outreach, we’ve seen people from the southern zone to the central zone, we’ve done overhauling of the surgeries, and now we’re having, in some of the most difficult settings that we need, we need experts.

“We need experts that come from France, from the U.S.A., and from Canada, to support us to ensure that Nigerians have the best benefit from this sector. Medical teams from America and Canada came with requisite medical equipment to handle all the referral cases recorded at previous missions at the Central and Southern zones, (that included heart surgeries and hip replacements), with the new cases to be recorded in this mission in the Northern zone.”

The national chairman said that the doctors would also be involved in training Nigerian medical personnel and imparting the necessary skills.

He said, “So we are optimistic that within these two weeks of their presence here, they will train Nigerian medical personnel, to provide training, manpower training, so that they can improve the capacity of Nigerian medical doctors to perform surgeries that would have been difficult for them before.

They will support nurses, they will support the private clinics and private hospitals, to ensure they give them capacity, so that not just doing surgery and going back to America, but they provide capacity for our staff and our own medical personnel back home here. So it’s actually an impressive program that would impact the regular life of people.”

The Team Lead, Dr. Emeka Anyanwu, said that the team is involved in five specialties, including trauma surgeons, gynecologists, ophthalmologists, orthopedic and general surgery.

He expressed optimism that the team will try to cover all cases within the period of the programme.

In a medical advisory issued by the office of the national chairman, the party said, “The bold and ambitious reforms initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu are revolutionizing the sector. We have started seeing the unfolding of his Universal Health Care plan for Nigerians in the revitalization, strengthening and upgrading of 6,500 Primary Healthcare Centres across Nigeria, the enrolment of over four Million Nigerians into the National Health Insurance Scheme, free Caesarean section of over four million women, the free dialysis service in pilot hospitals and a 96% discount in 10 hospitals across Nigeria, the commissioning of three (3) world-class medical centres for cancer treatment, amongst many others. All these are aimed at ensuring access to healthcare by every Nigerian.

“This mission has doctors and medical experts volunteering from the United States of America and Canada, with their Nigerian counterparts at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, providing the infrastructure and expert support, and the National Commission for Senior Citizens (NCSC), doing a special intervention for Seniors.

“This is the second of such mission the APC chairman is holding in the State. Previous missions were done in the Southern and Central zones of the State, it included eye checks and surgeries, cardio vascular health – a silent killer especially amongst men, and, maternal and child healthcare services, where free operations, medicated glasses and medicines were given to patients free of charge.

“At the party level, the APC would undertake similar missions across the 6 geopolitical zones of Nigeria as part of its Corporate Social Investment programmes. A timetable for this will be announced soon.

Earlier the chairman had received the team at the Yakubu Gowon Airport, Heipang, and also inspected the medical equipment to be used for the programme at JUTH. (Daily Sun)