ONI’S LIFE-SAVING OPERATION IN EKITI
Oni is on a rescue operation in Ekiti. With 27 surgeons from the United States of America strewn strategically across the three senatorial districts and a target of 1000 surgeries, the mission is cleared.
One of the cardinal programmes of the governor of Ekiti state, Engr. Olusegun Adebayo Oni is to provide quality healthcare to all Ekiti people, including those who cannot afford it.
Since the first blow of the whistle on May 29, Oni's race towards a healthy state has been a speedy one. The first indicator of a robust health package was the introduction of the Medical Intervention Programme (MIP), a step taken by the government to stem the tide of the escalating poverty-inducing mortality rate and various antenatal problems.
The MIP has three key issues to deal with. The first is for those with eye defects. A programme tagged “Eye Camp” was set up to cater for indigenes with such defects as cataract, glaucoma and other eye related ailments.
Out of a total of 12,841 people with eye defects screened in the last four months, 6,000 got eyeglasses free-of-charge while 291 eye surgeries were carried out successfully, all at the expense of the state government. Also, 3,765 people with minor eye defects were treated and given drugs free of charge.
During the first surgical festival, 350 major and minor operations have been delivered free of charge. These include such ailments like goiter, fibroid, postrate-enlargement, keloid, hernia, and chronic leg cancer, among others.
With the feat achieved in just four months, Oni could jolly well go to sleep, believing that his government had done well, having done more than his predecessors did in almost eight years! But he has not.
The second free surgical festival, which took 27 medical doctors from the US to Ikole (North), Ado (central) Ikere (south) and Ijero (central), is still ongoing. The foreign doctors who came on the interventionist mission to assist the state government in delivering its promise on qualitative health care include Chidi Ahagotu, an associate professor of urology from Howard University Hospital, Washington D.C,  Delvin Williams, Erica Schipper, Hassan Adeniji-Adele, Joan Obonte, Chidinma Marume and Babafemi Adenuga, all from the US.
In the just concluded festival of surgery, the American specialists in urology, pediatrics, gynecology and orthopedics, with their Nigerian counterparts have performed surgical operations on patients with ailments such as goiter, uterine fibroid, postrate enlargement, fistula in the anus, keloid, hernia, chronic leg cancer, rickets and swellings, among others.
The four centers where the operations took place daily had  their specialist hospitals filled to the brim with both the old and young jostling to receive free medical attention.
    As  the end of the surgical festival, a total of 582 surgeries were carried out. All of them were successful. Though the American doctors left earlier, their Nigerian counterparts continued until last week Friday.
The leader of the team of doctors, Dr. Chinedu Ahagotu, said they targeted 500 patients in Ado-Ekiti. The Specialist hospital in Ado-Ekiti then became the convergence point of not only people from the neighbouring towns in the state but Ekiti indigenes resident in other states of the country.
For instance, Mrs. Modupe Azeez, whose son is suffering from rickets, came all the way from Minna , Niger State to take advantage of the free surgery. She disclosed that she took her son to notable hospitals in the north, but could not afford the money required for the operation.
   “I can't express my joy enough. I have taken Kabiru to everywhere looking for help, but none came. We took him to an International Hospital in Niger State , but just as we were having a leeway, a communal clash ensued, making us to leave the place.
  “When I had the surgery going on in Ekiti State , I came with him and registered. Though the operation is yet to heal up, I know we have finally had a solution to his problem,” said Modupe Azeez.
   For Chief Victor Olomu, a community leader in Ikoro-Ekiti, there could not have been a better Christmas gift than the treatment of an age long postrate enlargement. Grinning from ear to ear, just a couple of hours after his operation, Olomu could not hide his excitement as he told newsmen that he would forever remain grateful to the Engr. Segun Oni-led administration for the gesture.
   “I had hernia as a result of postrate enlargement. Because of the difficulty in urinating, I had hernia.
   “The last operation, cost me over N400, 000 in Lagos hospital. It was very difficult raising the money, yet it was unsuccessful. But look at what Governor Oni has done for me. He has brought me out of the state of despair. I pray that God will continue to protect and give him wisdom to bring smiles into the faces of more people in Ekiti,” Olomu said.
   Paying glowing tribute to the governor for initiating the free surgical festival, Olomu noted that the state government has scored a “first” since the “days of the regional government.
   “So far, so good, I will say that this is the first of its kind in this state. I have been treated and nobody asked me to pay a kobo, not even for drugs!
   If Olomu is so ecstatic about his recovery, Mrs. Temidayo Oginni who was plagued with uterine fibroid began to cry as she was being wheeled out of the theatre, after the surgery.  But Oginni's tears were not out of the pains that most times come from surgery but as she puts it; “I never knew I could have my life back.
   “If you had seen me some months back, you would not have recognized me. I was moving around like a living corpse. I am crying, not because of the pains but I am overwhelmed with joy. The joy of recovery at no cost. I believe this is a divine intervention in my life. God has used Governor Oni to restore joy into my life and I pray God will also give him joy.”
   Of course, who could tell better if the patients were satisfied with the treatment than the doctors themselves.
   Miss Erica Schipper, one of the doctors from America spoke of her experience with some of the patients.
   “Because they are sick, you see sickness and with sickness come anxiety. Many of them are anxious and the moment after the surgery, we see gratitude. The effect of our mission's work is that they are relieved.
   Another expert on the team, Dr. Chidi Marume, a two-time commissioner for health in Imo State and now a consultant in USA , who is the head of the medical team noted that the experience has been very rewarding.
    His words; “The experience has been very rewarding. Yesterday at Ikere-Ekiti, we saw over 400 patients. Most of them showed they were actually in need.
   “In Ikere, we saw uterine prolapsed, hernia and majority of them were hypertensive, diabetic with pains, rheumatism. We had cases of the ubiquitous malaria also, and we attended to them. We are able to do all these because an enabling environment has been created by the state government. The drugs that we have presently are enough to go round and we will leave some for the state after the surgical festival.”
Stated that people who ordinarily could not have access to good medical care have been trooping to the hospital. He however noted that ignorance was still endemic in the lives of the people.
   “I am happy that we have been able to provide medical services to individuals who don't have access to health care. We are treating basically the poorest of the poor,” Adenuga said.
   Speaking with newsmen after taking part in one of the surgical operations, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Femi Thomas who until his appointment was a consultant thoracic cardiologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) expressed delight over the success of the exercise.
  “I am happy the way the exercise is going. We have performed over 400 operations, all successful. Really, I don't entertain any fear about the operations because I'm in a familiar terrain,” he noted.
    As the exercise began to wind up,  patients who are yet to benefit from the government's gesture became apprehensive. They feared that it might not reach their turn before the exercise ends even as the number continued to surge.
    This fear was however  allayed by Governor Oni who  assured that the Free Surgical Festival and other Medical Intervention Programmes (MIP) of the government would be a continuous exercise.
   The governor said his administration is committed to the welfare of the people, and as such; priority attention would continue to be given to quality health care delivery. He disclosed that over 100,000 patients had directly benefited from the MIP since inception.
  “We have done free eye surgery, we have distributed free eye glasses and drugs, and we have also been doing free surgical operations, which could have cost patients millions of naira.
  “We are presently developing a programme aimed at drastically reducing the high rate of maternal and infant mortality in the state. Under this programme, which I am sure will take off in January (this month), pregnant women, nursing mothers and their babies would undergo a series of free tests, counseling and treatment aimed at detecting ailments and complications early and ensuring that they are given immediate treatment when necessary.
   “This intervention scheme is for us a welfare economics model for ensuring that government injects subsidies into the lower income strata for averages to begin to make better sense. In a society where income disparity between the rich and the poor is so wide, subsidies like this (and others like micro-credit, education scholarship etc) is a way to ensure that the society is not skewed completely against the poor. This is the reason why we have crafted a measurement index tagged “DIB”- Direct Individual Beneficiaries which is a measurement (or count) of how many citizens took direct subsidies from government. All ministries have DIB targets for 2008”. 

Ekiti State Directorate of Information Technology