The wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, has pledged to champion the campaign against infant, maternal and child mortality in Nigeria.
Mrs Buhari said this during inauguration of free medical outreach organised by her NGO, the ‘Future Assured’ initiative in collaboration with Marie Stopes International, an NGO, and the Benue State Government.
Represented by the National Coordinator of her ‘Future Assured’ initiative in North Central, Hajiya Hansatu Zannah, the president’s wife said the exercise would provide opportunity to screen citizens for medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, cervical cancers.
She added that beneficiaries would be screened for breast cancer and malaria, while there would also be de-worming for 1000 school children.
Mrs Buhari thanked the Benue state government for being proactive in responding to the medical well-being of women and children in the state, while calling on women to imbibe the culture of regular medical check-up.
Gov. Samuel Ortom of Benue said the state government had trained 150 students of Benue state School of Health as qualified doctors, and had also rehabilitated the school of nursing as well as established 33 primary healthcare centres across the state.
The governor expressed his gratitude to the wife of the president for her support, while pledging to sustain support for the free medical programme she had initiated in the state.
Ortom said the medical outreach which targeted 3000 patients would assist the less-privileged.
The governor’s wife, Eunice Ortom, who expressed her sincere appreciation to Mrs Buhari for choosing Benue State for free medical programme, adding that the generality of Benue women remained grateful for the gesture.
A cross-section of beneficiaries who spoke to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) expressed their gratitude for the opportunity.
Mrs Fatimatu Muhammad prayed for the continuous improvement in the health of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mr Emmanuel Taarkaa also thanked the wife of the President for complimenting the efforts of the State government in providing good medical care for Benue people (NAN).