A joint medical outreach organised by the Ogoni Restoration Foundation (ORF) and volunteer doctors from five teaching hospitals across Nigeria has provided free medical care to over 5,000 residents across 12 communities in Khana, Tai, and Gokana local government areas of Rivers State — areas that have been largely absent from government healthcare programmes for years.
Services provided included general consultations, blood pressure and diabetes screening, eye testing, malaria treatment, wound care, maternal health consultations, and distribution of essential medicines including antimalarials, antibiotics, and pain management drugs.
Dr. Nkemdirim Nwachukwu, one of the coordinating physicians, described what the team encountered: "We saw hypertension patients who had never had their blood pressure checked. We saw diabetics who didn't know they were diabetic. We treated injuries that were months old. These are not people who rejected healthcare — they are people to whom healthcare has never been offered."
The Ogoni region was at the centre of international attention in the 1990s following the execution of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, but residents say the global attention did not translate into meaningful improvements in healthcare infrastructure on the ground.
The Federal Government's Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), designed to extend primary healthcare to underserved communities, has reportedly not reached several of the communities visited, despite them being on the programme's eligibility list.
The ORF has appealed to the Rivers State Government and the Federal Ministry of Health to establish at least four permanent primary healthcare centres in the communities reached during the outreach, providing the necessary staffing and drug supply chains.
