NYSC’s rural health initiative

After four decades, the challenges before the scheme have evolved with time thereby necessitating new thinking to provide better results. The idea that the NYSC has become a relic, relative to contemporary challenges, had threatened its relevance. Many had questioned whether the scheme should continue to exist in view of the fact that the country […]

After four decades, the challenges before the scheme have evolved with time thereby necessitating new thinking to provide better results. The idea that the NYSC has become a relic, relative to contemporary challenges, had threatened its relevance. Many had questioned whether the scheme should continue to exist in view of the fact that the country now has issues that are different from the ones it had when the scheme was set up.

The HIRD programme is thus a move that can help put pay to such strident complaints against the NYSC, especially those suggesting that it has outlived its usefulness. An initiative like this would not only dispel such suggestions but will also position the organisation and its work for the years ahead.  It tallies with the belief of the present leadership that even though the institution was set up to promote national unity it must now also continually carry out other social responsibilities for the good of all.
HIRD, a programme the NYSC is piloting in Kwara state in partnership with the state government and an NGO, the Royal Heritage Health Foundation, is meant to fill in the gap created by the shortage of the medical infrastructure. According to news reports, it is also aimed to address the reluctance of qualified medical experts to settle in rural areas and offer qualitative health services. It is designed to mobilize Volunteer Corps members for the provision of healthcare intervention services to the rural dwellers thereby facilitating access to prompt health services and improve the general wellbeing of these rural dwellers.
The initiative was conceived by Brigadier-General Johnson Olawumi, the NYSC DG, who explained that “it is part of the vision and Four-point Agenda of the scheme which focuses on increasing the visibility and capability of the NYSC to deliver more service to the people while also expanding partnership with stakeholders and other sundry organizations for greater positive impact of its activities on our communities”.
Olawumi’s tenure has touched on key issues like entrepreneurship, skills development, public health, economic development and others. These are in line with his avowal that the NYSC, apart from being an institution that was set up to promote National Unity through the compulsory Youth Service must also now begin to cater for pressing public needs across the country.
A commendable dimension to HIRD, is its inclusivity as the NYSC is not going it alone. The Royal Heritage Health Foundation has expertise in the development of community health infrastructures including the physically challenged, which it has brought into the programme. It is also banking on the support of rural dwellers to buy into the initiative by enrolling – an expectation that is already being met since the Olowu of Igbo-Owu and his wife registered as the first two beneficiaries of the Initiative in Igbo-Owu Community in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, where HIRD was launched recently. State governments are also expected to provide vehicles, drugs and some medical personnel.
It is possibly on such note that the NYSC DG described the launch of the initiative as manifestation of the development focused partnership that has been existing between Kwara State and the NYSC. Fortunately, he also disclosed that the initiative will be replicated in all the states of the federation, where the Scheme plans to leverage on its spread and abundant human resource which consists of corps medical personnel and other corps members in allied disciplines. This would have significantly solved the persistent problem of poor healthcare delivery in rural areas. Under the arrangement, as many as one hundred Corps Volunteers will be trained in each of the orientation camps for the take off of the programme in all the states of the Federation and Federal Capital Territory.
It is however important to note that a lot still has to be done for HIRD to succeed in achieving the set goals of improving the lives of the people. The Corps Volunteers will have to conduct medical outreaches and they will require basic facilities such as vehicles, drugs and other medical equipment. The NYSC helmsman has appealed to both public and private organizations as well as individuals to support and strengthen the programme in this regard. Responding positively to this appeal would be a nice way of encouraging the NYSC to do more in evolving other initiatives that directly impact the lives of the populace while at the same time contributing to the wellbeing of those who ordinarily would not have had access to medical facilities.
On their part, Volunteers Corps under the initiative will gain that unique experience of truly serving the fatherland and those in need. This should adequately solve the problem of under-engaged corps members who ultimately develop the knack for roaming the streets of urban centres out of fear that they would be bored in rural areas. Discerning corps members will wish to be part of this revolution.
The NYSC should find ways of developing programmes like HIRD for other key focal areas it has identified for intervention. Doing this will place the scheme in a position to better gainfully deploy corps members and present the NYSC as modern organization that remain relevant in daily reckoning. Officials of the scheme must see to it that they build a system around HIRD so that it can outlast their own tenures at the scheme.  

Agbi wrote from Akure