The Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO) has over the decades become synonymous with humanitarian services. In recent years, the committee’s focus has been on the safety of mothers, children and less privileged Nigerians. Writes JOSHUA BASSEY.
Funmilayo Mobolaji-Johnson, wife of the first military governor of Lagos State at creation in 1967 may be dead, but not her vision. Fifty years on, the mustard seed she sowed has grown much larger, perhaps, than she envisioned at the time she conceived the idea.
The phenomenal growth of the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO) which Funmilayo Mobolaji-Johnson founded as the first lady of Lagos State, surely confirms the belief that vision does not die. Nevertheless, sustaining a vision requires that generations after the visionary key into and run with the vision.
Here is where Oluremi Tinubu, another former first lady of Lagos State and senator representing Lagos Central in the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly, stands tall. Oluremi Tinubu, it was, who revived the COWLSO vision following the election of her husband, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as governor in 1999.
For eighteen unbroken years, therefore, successive first ladies of Lagos, from Abimbola Fashola to Bolanle Ambode have continued to build on the legacies of their predecessors; ensuring that COWLSO not only grow in leaps and bounds but touching lives and reviving hope.
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Bolanle Ambode, COWLSO’s current chairman captures it this way: “With much humility, I give profound commendation to the founder of COWLSO, our departed matriarch, Mama Obafunmilayo Mobolaji-Johnson. The small seed she planted decades ago has grown into a large tree.”
Nothing speaks more to the exploits of COWLSO than the various life touching projects it has continued to execute.
In October this year, members of COWLSO led by Ambode were at the Lagos Island Maternity and Hospital to hand over an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), donated by the committee.
The donation of the ICU was in line with COWLSO’s health intervention for the year, aimed basically at combating maternal mortality rate in Lagos State.
The 57-year-old Island maternity ranks among some of the best maternity hospitals in Nigeria and has the enviable record of an average of 400 deliveries monthly.
The donated ICU is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as a humidifier, multi-parameter monitors, portable multi-parameter monitor, volumetric infusion pump and portable suction unit. Others are blood fluid/warmer, automatic external defibrillator and Marquet servo air intensive care unit ventilators.
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Also donated by the committee the same day to four other hospitals in Lagos were to read audiological instruments. The benefitting facilities include Gbagada, Ikorodu, Badagry and Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospitals.
Earlier in September also this year, members of the committee were at Odan General Hospital, on Lagos Island, where they donated state-of-the-art Ear, Nose and Throat (E.N.T) equipment. The E.N.T equipment included Heine Otoscope, Diagnostic Audiometer AD629, video laryngoscope and propose ear injector among others. The equipment has the capacity not only to detect hearing impairment in adults but also in children and new-born.
The committee also sponsored free goitre surgeries and distribution of hearing aids to selected women, men and children who were picked after medical screening carried out by the officials of the state ministry of health.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), early detection and treatment of infections such as measles and hearing impairment and other diseases in children and adults are essential to building a healthy society. Sadly, however, in many of the health facilities across Nigeria, modern equipment for early detection and treatment of these diseases and birth-related disorders are lacking, and in places where they are available, the cost is way above the reach of less privileged parents, who, in many cases, simply resign to fate.
It is medically and socially unhealthy, for example, for a goitre to be left untreated. Whereas there are a variety of treatment options, including medications and a special kind of radiation therapy, surgery is more often recommended for patients diagnosed with toxic modula goitre, especially where medication has failed to control thyroid production.
However, due to the high cost of the surgical procedure, many women suffering from this disorder are unable to complete the full circle of treatment; hence the intervention of COWLSO is seen as a positive development.
“It is a delight to see the COWLSO fulfilling one of its founding objectives which are to complement the effort of the state government in catering for the welfare of citizens,” Bolanle Ambode, chairman of the committee says.
She explains that the decision to upgrade the E.N.T department of the Odan General Hospital was borne out of the need to drastically reduce the percentage of people suffering from hearing impairment.
According to Ambode, communication plays an important role in society as hearing and understanding are central to social life while people with hearing difficulties have the tendency to be isolated and more likely to suffer depression.
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“Using hearing aid presents a number of advantages for a hearing-impaired person and these include improved oral expression. With a modern hearing aid, they not only understand others better, but others can understand them better too.
“Studies have shown that hearing aids generally improve the quality of life and help affected persons get a better relationship with family, feel better about themselves, get better mental health, and concentrate better at school. It also helps them feel more independent and secure.
“Our aim, therefore, is to ensure that hearing defect does not constitute a limitation to children of school age, as well as adults,” she says.
On the sponsorship of the free goitre surgery, Ambode recalls with concern the weekly diagnose of women with the disease, majority of which require surgery, adding that the decision to sponsor their surgeries was informed by the prohibitively high cost involved. She discloses that 30 women have benefitted from the free surgeries while another 30 received modern hearing aids.
On the donation of the ICU and other equipment to the Island maternity and other hospitals, the COWLSO chairman says it is a special intervention aimed at saving the lives of mothers and children during delivery.
According to her, “every now and then, we hear of many pregnant women and their babies dying of conditions such as pregnancy-induced hypertension, convulsion or shock arising from post-delivery bleeding. We recognise that until the state’s health insurance scheme becomes fully operational, affording the ICU services may remain a challenge for most people.
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“Here lies the wisdom in COWLSO’s intervention in upgrading and strengthening the existing high dependency unit, to an ultra-modern ICU, to cope with increased number and complexity of emergency cases.
This support, therefore, has the potential to save mothers and babies, as well as ease the financial pressure on families that may need the services, Ambode says.
She reiterates the commitment of COWLSO to the safe motherhood project and continued partnership with health facilities across the state, in ensuring that “no life is lost in pregnancy and during delivery.”
She explains that the different projects undertaken were carefully selected to complement government’s efforts at reducing maternal and child morbidity and mortality.
“Needless to say that COWLSO is very much concerned about the good health and wellbeing of mothers and children, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals on the health of citizens, says the governor’s wife.
Adebayo Aderiye, chairman of Lagos State Health Service Commission, commends the committee for the initiative, describing it as a positive development in the state.
Aderiye assures that the new E.N.T equipment had been subjected to a rigorous test, and confirmed to be in perfect condition.
Jide Idris, Lagos State Commissioner for Health, speaking on the donation of the ICU, says it will complement other facilities put in place at the Island Maternity, by the government, thus making it better equipped to handle deliveries as well as treatment of mothers and newborn babies.
JOSHUA BASSEY
