When medical consultants rise for IDPs

As the rainy season sets in again, it is obvious that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the various camps in Benue State would need more than just shelter and food to stay healthy. To this end, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) during the week, donated drugs and other relief materials […]

As the rainy season sets in again, it is obvious that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the various camps in Benue State would need more than just shelter and food to stay healthy.

To this end, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) during the week, donated drugs and other relief materials to the 34, 986 people camped at Abagana, in Makurdi, in order to fight malaria, especially among children said to number about 18,000.

MDCAN said the idea was to control malaria at the camp, boost the drug store, avert the outbreak of any disease, and also check the spread of other diseases, as the rains set in.

The Chairman of Committee for IDP Relief Material to Benue State, Dr. Orimolade Ayodele, while donating the drugs and other relief items to the IDPs, said the association decided to touch the lives of the displaced people across the country.

“We conducted a need assessment of IDPs and discovered that they were many and beyond what government alone could handle so we felt the need to intervene,” he said.

Ayodele, who is also from the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Ile-Ife, added that MDCAN considered that the donation of drugs to the clinic at the camp became necessary with the advent of the rainy season.

He therefore appealed to community leaders and governments at all levels to work towards checking incidences that would prevent citizens from staying too long at the IDP camps, stressing that if the IDPs were made to go back home, they would be able to contribute their quota to the development of the economy.

Also speaking, the MDCAN Chairman of the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Makurdi, Dr. Nombur Isaac, accompanied by his counterpart from the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH), Dr. Yongo Williams, appreciated the camp officials for keeping the camp reasonably clean.

Isaac said the medical practitioners, even at the state level, had from time to time lend helping hands to the IDPs and that was why he was happy that incidences of varied illnesses had declined amongst them in recent times.

He observed that the camp environment was clean and the people in high spirit, which in his estimation would further boost their immunity to enable them live healthy.

Isaac noted that the IDPs were also looking good, nutritionally and health wise.

Responding, the Camp Manager, James Iorkyaa, on behalf of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), expressed gratitude for the donations to the IDPs, particularly the drugs.

The items donated include bags of rice, soaps, mats, toothpaste, yoghurts, biscuits, sanitary pads, and drugs to be kept in the camp clinic.

The camp manager, who admitted that malaria was prevalent in the camp, said the donations came at the right time to stem the tide of malaria, especially among children.

Iorkyaa revealed that five new babies have been born in the camp since the beginning of the year while no death has been recorded. He said more babies are being expected from the pregnant women at the camp.