Hardship: Lagos offers free medical care to 50,000 residents

Lagos State Government, yesterday, disclosed that its on-going outreach will reach not less than 50,000 residents, to cushion the effect of the economic hardship on Lagosians.

The outreach, tagged ‘Alafia Eko’, which commenced yesterday, will cover six health districts, with specific locations for each.

The state government also announced that the second outreach will begin by June 6 and that each health district will host four outreach events in the first phase.

The Special Advisor to the Governor on Health, Dr Kemi Ogunyemi, who gave insight into the significance of the initiative, also said that each event would target 1,000 citizens, totalling approximately 25,000 individuals for the first phase.

Ogunyem said: “The whole essence of this is to ensure that all the citizens in Lagos get access to affordable and quality healthcare.  With all the economic hardship that we felt was going on months ago, Mr Governor spoke to his cabinet, which included me, to find out ways in which we can help our citizens and make things a little bit easier for them.

“So we came up with Eko Cares, which consists of Onje Eko, which started a few months ago.

“Then the Ministry of Health came up with Alafia Eko because we realised that drugs were getting more expensive, people were staying at home, and they couldn’t afford to even come to the doctors.

“And then, we have education, where there is free registration for students and also transportation, where there is a reduction in the cost of transportation.”