No fewer than 3,000 villagers have benefited from the 2021 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) free medical outreach in Katsina State.
According to a statement issued to newsmen on Friday in Katsina by the NYSC’s spokesperson, Mr Alex Obemeata, the gesture is through its Health initiative For Rural Dwellers.
It said that the NYSC Coordinator in the state, Alhaji Ahidjo Yahaya, disclosed this at the end of the exercise on Friday at Iyatawa village, in Rimi Local Government Area.
“The programme which started on Monday saw a tumultuous turn out of indigent villagers who were actually in need of physicians for a very long time.
“The Coordinator reported that the initial 20 Corps Medical personnel assigned for the programme had to be reinforced with additional 10 to be able to handle the crowd.
“Ahidjo used the forum to educate the people in both Hausa and Fulani dialects to always check their health condition with the nearest government health centre” the statement said.
It added that the coordinator also told the villagers that NYSC would always come to their aid and that they should believe in the scheme.
The Chief Corps Medical Director in charge, Dr Mansir Bishir-Ango, observed that the exercise was dominated by environmental and waterborne diseases and that most affected were women, children and the elderly.
The village head of Iyatawa, Alhaji Magaji, commended the NYSC for the gesture, appealing to the Federal and state’s governments to provide his community with boreholes so that they would have good drinking water.
He further appealed to governments to provide the residents with a Community Health Centre to cater for the population who he said their occupation was mainly farming.
Magaji lamented that many of his subjects had lost their children while pregnant women had miscarriages due to lack of health facility close enough for them to attend during health crisis.
He, however, said that he and his people would remain grateful to the NYSC for selecting their community for the free health care services.
