TheCable

The Ogun government says over 100 people have benefited from the ongoing free surgical intervention programme in the state.

The initiative by Dapo Abiodun, governor of Ogun, was flagged off on Tuesday with surgical operations performed on patients at all the six state-owned hospitals and general hospitals across the state.

Bababunmi Osinaike, chief medical director (CMD) of the state hospital at Ijaye in Abeokuta, the capital city, said 491 people have registered at the facility, while 36 patients have been operated upon.

“As of this morning (Wednesday), we have registered about 491 enrollees. They are screened by health practitioners and they also decide those that are eligible and fit for surgery. We commenced surgery yesterday and we have carried out 36 surgeries so far,” Osinaike said.

“Out of the 36, we had 13 general surgery cases, one orthopaedic, and 22 ophthalmic surgeries. The general surgery cases range from hernia, undescended testicles, excision of breast lump, lipomas, among others.”

The CMD said 40 patients have been booked for operation out of which 17 would go for general surgery.

He added that 23 persons require eye operation, noting that some gynaecology cases like fibroid and thyroid, would be attended to on Thursday.

Samuel Tolulope, head of clinical services, said though the free surgery programme has attracted a huge turnout of patients, it has been hitch-free with no death recorded.

Owolabi Soletire, a beneficiary of the programme, said the lumps in his hands were operated on, confirming that he did not pay for the procedure.

Another beneficiary, Sunday Alayade, who was suffering from a hernia and was operated upon appreciated the governor for the programme.

Speaking on the exercise, Banjo Adeoye, the CMD of the state hospital in Ijebu-Ode, said the procedures would continue till March 31.

“The surgeries we did today were for those that came and registered yesterday and we carried out 11 surgeries.

“For today, we have 12 surgical procedures and it is still going on at the Theatre as at this moment. As of yesterday (Tuesday), we had 206 registered beneficiaries and at this moment (Wednesday), we have recorded about 230 beneficiaries for various surgical procedures.”