A Non-Governmental Organization, Femimoniolu Foundation, has launched a free medical outreach for the people of Ogotun Ekiti in Ekiti South West Local Government.
The initiative, which was the first major project of the new NGO, had medical experts on ground to educate, check up their blood pressure, malaria parasite, sugar level etc, as they prescribed and distributed drugs as well as referred people for a better health care.
A medical personnel, Mr Segun Oni, who enlightened hundreds of residents on how best to manage their health, most especially those above fifty years emphasized the need to prevent some terminal diseases.
Speaking on diabetes management, he said it was very important to watch their food intake, do regular exercise, changing their life style for better health as well as regular check ups of their blood sugar.
The founder of Femimoniolu Foundation, Mr Babatunde Oluwasinmirin, who explained that the initiative was part of the activities meant for his father’s Burial, Pa Olufemi Oluwasinmirin, observed that many cases of death could have been prevented if the victims had been well informed of how best to manage the situations.
In his words “Femimoniolu Foundation is about sustaining lives. We discovered even though some terminal diseases are incurable, but some cases of death are preventable. One of the ways to this is early diagnosis.
“In this part of the world, people don’t go to the hospital when they are not sick. This is a mentality that we must correct and in most cases people fail to live a very good healthy lifestyle.
“This may not totally be their faults because in a community where people live on less than 2 dollars per day, they will not be able to afford regular medical checkups of about 5dollars.
“We have given and trained the people how to use some basic facilities such as sphygmomanometer and glucometer to check up on their own without necessarily needing any assistance. This is to erase the concerns for time and money.”
Mr Oluwasinmirin noted that the program would be continuous as the foundation had partnered with the Basic Health Centres and pharmarceutical outfits in the area to ensure free health service delivery on the bill of the foundation.
Femimoniolu founder further explained, “Although, this is not our first humanitarian service, we have been rendering assistance through scholarship and bursary to Ogotun students, but this time we decided to face health because I lost my mother Monisola Oluwasinmirin to cancer and my father Olufemi Oluwasinmirin to blood pressure complications.
“When people came to sympathize with us for the demise of my father, we decided to check their blood pressure. Many people were noted above 180, 200 and above BP. This is killing and most people are working corpses.
“Specifically, we believe that the elderlies need more attention because they have laboured and we want them to eat the fruits of their labours.This is not going to be limited to Ogotun Ekiti but as we know, charity begins at home. We have a mission where every household in Ekiti state has access to free health care delivery.
The Siblings of the founder, Mrs Funmilola Alagbola and Sola Oluwasinmirin, explained that the foundation was named after their late parents hence the need to support the founder at achieving the goals.
Some of the beneficiaries who included Pa Oluwasola Joel, Mrs Alice Agboola and Mrs Odeusi Kemisola described Mr Tunde Olumide Oluwasinmirin as a philantropist who had from his childhood loved to render humanitarian services.
“We thank him very much, he has been a star in this town. He has been helping our children through his involvement in Ogotun scholarship scheme and now it is medical outreach. We can only pray for him that he continues to grow higher.
“The apple did no fall far from the tree, these are the ways of his parents and he has chosen to follow and lay a more solid legacy.”