The state government has announced that the second outreach will begin by June 6 and that each health district will host four outreach events in the first phase.
In its bid to reduce the hardship in the state especially in the area of accessing healthcare, the State government kicked off the free medical care for its residents.
The state government disclosed on Thursday that the on-going outreach would reach not less than 50,000 residents, to cushion the effect of the economic hardship in Lagosians.
The outreach, tagged ‘Alafia Eko’, which commenced yesterday, is scheduled to cover six health districts, with specific locations for each.
Many Lagosians turned up at the 24 centres earmarked for the various free medical services, which is in line with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s directive that “all Lagosians should have access to health care.’’
While speaking on the scheme, Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr Kemi Ogunyemi, gave insight into the significance of the initiative, saying each event would target 1,000 citizens, totalling approximately 25,000 individuals for the first phase.
According to Ogunyem, “The whole essence of this is to ensure that all the citizens in Lagos get access to affordable and quality healthcare. With all the economic hardship that we felt was going on months ago, Mr Governor spoke to his cabinet, which included me, to find out ways in which we can help our citizens and make things a little bit easier for them.
“So we came up with Eko Cares, which consists of Onje Eko, which started a few months ago. Then the Ministry of Health came up with Alafia Eko because we realised that drugs were getting more expensive, people were staying at home, and they couldn’t afford to even come to the doctors.”, she concluded.
Africa Health Report learned that a significant number of residents has flocked the various places where the outreach is being held to participate in the free heath care. People can be seen in Papa area of Oworonshoki in Kosofe LGA,, Bariga LCDA, Ikorodu West LCDA, Agboyi-Ketu LCDA and some other places.
