LSACA, others take health awareness campaign to grassroots

Residents of Campos Community were seen in droves on Saturday in elongated queues avid to get screened and tested for various health ailments, particularly blood pressure and HIV/AIDS at a grass-root healthawareness campaign and screening programme held at Campos Street, CMS. This step was taken as a prelude to the health programme to be organised by the state government soon at various health centres across the state to get people screened for health related issues.

Medical practitioners advise that early detection of high blood pressure is the first step to preventing it and the World Health Organization, WHO, urges people to collaborate effort in the fight against hypertension. According to statistics, worldwide, high blood pressure is estimated to affect more than one in three adults aged 25 and over, or about one billion people and hypertension is one of the most important contributors to heart disease and stroke – which together make up the world’s number one cause of premature death and disability. Researchers have also estimated that high blood pressure contributes to nearly 9.4 million deaths from cardiovascular disease each year.

It is in line with this fight against deaths caused by hypertension and HIV/AIDS that the residents of Campos came out en-mass to take advantage of the free health care service organised by a group of youths led by Adekitan Adesheye, a local D.J., popularly known as Skit. The idea, according to him was born out of his passion to “affect lives” in his own little way.

Those conducting the test for blood pressure were trained personnels from the Lagos State School of Health, and representatives of Lagos State AIDS Control Agency conducted test for HIV/AIDS.

Speaking to Business Day, Adesheye said that: “Young people of nowadays don’t know their health status. We don’t know the state of our hearts, our blood pressures and are ignorant of the risks we carry about. We just wake up in the morning and delve into our various activities without ascertaining whether we are alive or walking dead. Growing up, these kinds of programmes used to take place in our community; we don’t know why it stopped. So, I decided to bring young people together to do a health check for the residents of this community and then we can go further by re-orientating them on the significance of this practice.”

The programme was backed by the Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, Lagos State Ministry of Health and the Lagos State School of Health, Yaba.
“I must say that the health sector is doing well, but poorly in terms of publicising their programmes and outreaches. You don’t get to hear about health events they organise. Before I organised this event, I spent a lot of time at the ministry of health and saw their programmes. The programmes are good, but the publicity is unavailable.”
“For instance, a programme is coming up soon by the Lagos State Government, I’m certain that a lot of people are not aware of it. How do you prepare for or attend an event when you don’t know about it?

You have to educate them about the programme, create a proper awareness medium so that when you start the programme, it will be easy for you to mobilise people,” said Adesheye while expressing his opinion on the state of the health sector of the country.

“The Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, LSACA, was informed about this innovation and therefore conducted the AIDS test for the residents of Campos. What we are basically here to do is to give proper counsel to them after testing them. We also educate them about the disease because we understand that not every one of them present here today has the right knowledge of the deadly virus. We teach them how they manage themselves, prevent the disease and if anyone tests positive then we can refer them to specialists for the right treatment.
This platform enables the people to know their status which will them in planning their lives,” said a representative of LSACA who preferred to remain anonymous.
Feeling excited, Onilyi Emmanuel said he was extremely glad about what was taking place in his community. “For youths to organise something like this is really innovative and as such should interest one to be a part of it.

I came here to check my blood pressure. It’s been a long time I checked the state of my blood pressure, and I was delighted when this event came up and I came to take advantage of it. It would be a wonderful thing if it occurs regularly, at least to provide us with the opportunity to do this and save us the stress of visiting a hospital,” he said with a glee.
Another beneficiary, Adekitan Temitayo, stressed the importance of knowing the state of ones’ health. “It is important we do these check-ups to maintain a good health,” she said. According to Temitayo, “I feel good about this initiative because knowing the state your health brings confidence to people. The fact that this programme was organised to help the less privileged is wonderful because it rids residents of the fear of paying for health services at general or private hospitals.”

DESMOND OKON