Government tasked on health screening centres, services

The Executive Director, Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO), Sabina Idowu-Osehobo, has called on government at all levels to address the problem of inadequate screening centres for optimal services in its healthcare programmes, as well as cater for patients at the rural communities in dire need of healthcare services.

Osehobo spoke in Benin City during the LAPO Annual Medial Forum, where she reviewed the 2016 LAPO performance report, which called for improvement in health screening services in rural communities and urged the federal and state government to provide more healthcare intervention programmes across the various communities at the grassroots.

She lamented the non-availability of healthcare screening centres at rural communities as well as the unaffordable cost of assessing such healthcare screening services where available. “Where the services are available, it is expensive for rural dwellers to afford.”

Osehobo noted that LAPO has in its health intervention programme, provided health education and health screening services with
referrals\follow-up to no fewer than 303,598 persons as well as
69,017 benefited in its social education programme.

She added that a situation where the services are available, but rural dwellers are unable to assess health screening services due to non-affordability is counter-productive.