POLITICS
Lagos Govt to Sponsor 400 Free Limb Deformity Surgeries
Lagos State Government says more than 400 people will benefit from its new phase of the state sponsored Free Limb Deformity Corrective Surgery and Rehabilitative Programme.
The programme is an intervention targeted at rehabilitating people, especially children, with lower limb deformities such as rickets or Blount disease, and other lower limb deformities that affect their normal growth and function.
The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, made this known during his visit to the screening site for the latest batch of beneficiaries at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.
Ogboye said that the current phase of the exercise had recorded over 400 potential beneficiaries, who would be screened over a period of two days, while appropriate medical examinations were conducted.
He said that during the current phase, 80 children would benefit from corrective surgical intervention, just as others would be offered physiotherapy, nutrition and health education, as well as assistive mobility devices that would improve their health.
Ogboye said that the results of their examination would be reviewed by a team of specialists and those that qualified for surgery would be booked for surgical intervention within the next 10 days.
According to him, the process will be at no cost to the patients.
”The process involves a screening where surgeons examine patients and select those eligible to benefit from surgery and others that may benefit from assistive devices and other forms of physical rehabilitation.
”Those who pre-qualify for surgery will then go through a series of diagnostic investigations, including x-rays and blood tests to check for the form of the bone malformation, calcium levels and other basic parameters.
”Patients are then offered surgery and kept overnight for observation. This is supervised by our team of orthopaedic surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and other health professionals.
”After discharge, patients will come for follow-up visits at the clinic, and then also go through physiotherapy to ensure we get the best outcomes,” he said.
Ogboye said that many of the limb deformities, which could be corrected by surgery and rehabilitation, would improve the health status of the beneficiaries and give a greater sense of self-worth.
He also said that the patients would have better chances for economic empowerment and financial independence.
”This programme often leads to improved mobility and health outcomes for the beneficiaries, and allows us to demonstrate our commitment as a state, to develop our human capital and give our children a good platform to achieve their dreams and aspirations.
”The programme also allows us to generate data to create other targeted disability intervention strategies to help more people that may have been disadvantaged healthwise in one way or another,” the permanent secretary said.
Speaking in the same vein, the Coordinator of the Programme, Dr Tolulope Ajomale, said that over 6,000 patients had benefitted from the programme since inception,.
Ajomale said that the programme had evolved into a multidisciplinary surgical outreach programme that explored surgical intervention, physiotherapy and assistive mobility devices to improve their health.
He said that the programme, usually held biannually, was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that the surgical and rehabilitative intervention programme had been rejigged to ameliorate the suffering of patients and their families.
Ajomale said that the massive turnout of potential beneficiaries at the screening exercise was an affirmation of the impact the programme had on citizens who had benefitted from the programme.
According to him, another screening exercise will be organised before the end of the year to expand the window for more potential beneficiaries. (NAN)
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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