Foundation offers to support Taraba communities on health issues

TO avoid deaths from curable ailments in rural communities of Taraba State, a group, T.Y. Danjuma Foundation, said it has offered to reach out some areas in the state by taking medical facilities and treatment to the doorsteps of persons in dire need of medication in the areas.

The leadership of the foundation stated this during the commissioning of the Rider For Health/T.Y. Danjuma Foundation Community Health Outreach Support Project for both Wukari and Takum local councils in the state.

The exercise, which took place in Takum, according to the Co-ordinator of the Foundation, Funmi Ajala, is aimed at reaching out to “the hard-to-reach” areas in the state.

Ajala said able-bodied men from the two councils had not only be assigned with the responsibilities of conveying vaccines and other needed medical facilities to villages in the councils, but had also been trained to carry out minor treatments on patients who find it difficult to visit government approved hospitals.

She said the men, who were equipped with motor-bikes, would also carry out the responsibilities of distributing vaccines, referring patients to approved medical facilities and ensuring safe delivery to mention just a few.

The programme, which has been going on in both Lau and Zing local councils, was said to have been replicated in Wukari and Takum following its success in the northern zone of the state.

Plans, according to the Foundation, are on the way to spread it across the entire 16 local councils of the state, as it is presently operating in the entire six geo-political zones of the country.

While admonishing the trained persons who had been placed on daily allowances, fuelling and serving of their motorbikes by the Foundation, the need for the communities to checkmate them can no longer be over-emphasised.

On their own part, both the Country Director, Riders for Health, Kayode Ajayi and its representative, Victor O, said the organisation would continue to work closely with the T.Y. Foundation, who, according to them, has not relent in bringing succour to the people of the state and the country.

Also speaking, chairmen of both councils stressed the need for the Foundation to, as a matter of urgency, come to the aid of the councils by addressing the plights of refugees presently domiciling in various Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps in the area.

The councils on their own promised would work round the clock to ensure the success of the programme, which they believed, would go a long way to reduce the plights of people in the rural areas.