Abia State Government (ABSG) in collaboration with the Abia State Diaspora Commission has commenced a week-long State Global Medical Mission 2025 featuring surgeries and medical consultations already taking place in five designated centres across the state.
Enoch Ogbonnaya, professor and commissioner for Health, while speaking at the Abia State Specialist Hospital, Umuahia, after visiting some other centres of the outreach, said that Governor Alex Otti was embarking on the Abia Global Medical Outreach in collaboration with the Abia Diasporan Commission in continuation of his transformative agenda.
“This is part of His Excellency’s roadmap to healthcare equity in Abia State, which is a trilogy of projects that have been carefully planned and have been implemented to ensure that people in Abia, irrespective of where they live, down to the last mile, are able to access the highest quality of healthcare.
“The idea is that His Excellency believes that taking health care directly to the people, saves health care costs, ensures that high-quality healthcare is delivered to the people at the grassroots,” Uche stated.
He disclosed that the three components of the outreach include; free medical outreaches, collaboration with global health organisations, and health insurance and adding that, “in this programme, we have a training aspect, where we are training frontline healthcare workers on basic life support and advanced cardiovascular life support.
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“This training is also ongoing to be able to ensure that our health care workers are given the right skill sets that they will require to save the lives of our people,” Uche explained.
The Commissioner, who lauded Governor Otti’s commitment to health care delivery in Abia, disclosed that the Governor was recently awarded with the best performance, as the top performer in primary health care, for the Southeast Zone and one of the six top-performing Governors in the country.
He further said that the outreach would reduce quackery, and enjoined Ndi Abia to take advantage of the opportunity to get medical attention.
Okechukwu Agbara, chairman, Abia State Diaspora Commission, in his contribution said the team was happy to collaborate with Governor Otti to deliver quality free medical services to the people in the state.
He said that the medical mission was delivering free medical consultations, health promotion talks, skills transfer, free surgeries, basic and advanced cardiovascular life support training to residents and appreciated the commitment of Governor Alex Otti to the progress of the state, assuring of their support.
“This mission is being executed. It is a success. The surgeries are being done here. Then, there is eye surgery being done at SDA. About 150 of them each day. So, I will tell you this. Abia State is becoming something that everybody is pretty much proud of.
“So, for us in Diaspora, it is our responsibility to facilitate this kind of development, this kind of effort this man (Gov. Otti) is making. Not too long ago, Abia State won the NGF award, which amounted up to $500,000.
“That I will do my best to make sure that we make the necessary contact for this place to receive what it is supposed to get in terms of Diaspora investment, in terms of Diaspora health care, in terms of Diaspora connection.
“He (Gov. Otti) has done a whole lot. I thank him so immensely for taking the health care of Abia State as one of his top priorities in his budget and also in his plans,” Agbara stated.
He appreciated the Doctors that volunteered to come for the medical mission, both from Diaspora and those that are at home, as well as members of the Diaspora Commission.
Some medical personnel, including, Dr. Chinedu Nwaru and Goodluck Esiwoke said they handle all kinds of surgeries, and appreciated the partnership with Governor Alex Otti, saying that Abia State is in the forefront of many developmental efforts.
