BASIC HEALTH CARE FOR MY COMMUNITY

I am Marc-Silas Ahuose Okoobo, married to Elohor Pamela Okoobo (a registered nurse and registered midwife working in a private health centre miles away from where we live) with a pretty kid daughter, Pamela Okoobo; and we live among a hospitable, cheerful, peace-loving, and hardworking people in a rather remote community of Idumebo-Irrua, Nigeria (West Africa). My project is all about providing free basic medical check-ups, essential medicines and primary health care with periodic health education/enlightenment to the poor & hunger-weakened dwellers of the Idumebo-Irrua community among whom we dwell. This is basically a rural settlement which is very slowly transforming into a mini town with a high level of illiteracy, small scale farming as the major occupation, and a community where the health, social, &mental complications of poverty and remoteness from urban life are very obvious. Commonest among the many diseases ravaging these almost neglected rural dwellers are poorly managed diabetes mellitus with its complications, uncontrolled hypertension with its complications, peptic ulcer, worsening arthritis and visual impairments of various degrees. Dwellers in our community will have to travel for many kilometers, risking their lives on our not-too-good roads just to get access to a few essential medicines since most of them cannot afford the bills of the nearby teaching hospital. Some girl children seem to have no motivation/desire for formal or informal education or any kind of empowerment the growing woman needs to face the daunting challenges of today’s world and get abused (especially sexual & physically) while the misguided male folks are being given to vices of various kinds. It was only about two (2) weeks after my wife and I moved here (more than two years ago now), before our only girl child was born, when our eyes became opened to the various social and health needs of many of our neighbors. Since then, we have been very disturbed with a burden for the land especially as primary health care providers- we have been able to give helping hands to a handful of individuals with our meager salaries, hence we are here to appeal for funds as directed by a concerned friend of ours who have been greatly helped by you all. In executing this all-important & life-changing project, my wife and I will set up an outlet where health care needs will be attended to at the community level by providing free medical checkups, needed essential medicines for common illnesses and provision of first aid interventions with quick referrals to teaching hospitals for specialist care where necessary. We shall be using the community hall for periodic health education meetings where resource persons/guest speakers will be invited. If adequately funded as we are more than counting on you, we should also be able to pay the school fees of some kids around who have been drop outs due to lack of finance to carry on with schooling. With your help and generosity, we hope to carry out this project successfully that will help to restore health and vitality to the ill dwellers of the community which in turn will boost the economy as youths dominate the work force, give hope to the girl child/growing woman while helping them get empowered for life’s challenges, and making this a sustained development for generations yet unborn. A healthy community, they say, is a wealthy community. If some have died of undiagnosed illnesses, hence untreated; then, this for us may be a project worth giving up our personal joys for…and possibly, worth dying for. We can never do this without your helping hands and touches of love. Thank you very much for being in this with us…for your donations to help bring free essential medicines and basic health care to my community.