For Some Lagos Residents, Man Shall Not Live By Bread Alone

RESIDENTSIN SURULERE AND SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES, RECENTLY PLAYED HOST TO THE PAINCARE OUTREACH TEAM COMPRISING NURSES, DOCTORS, PHARMACISTS, EVANGELISTS AND OTHERS THAT PROVIDED HEALTH CARE SERVICES TO THE PEOPLE. ANAYO OKOLI WRITES

The mission, which is the brainchild of Mr. Peter Ebere Nwosu, Managing Director, Greenlife Pharmaceutrical LTD, aims to provide free medical care and drugs to poor people in mostly backward communities while also preaching the Christian gospel to them.

About 5, 000 people from the street and adjoining communities were opportuned to get free medical consultations from the team of medical experts including doctors, pharmacies and nurses. For those with simple  health issues, available medicines were recommended by the doctors, while others with visibly nothing to attend were given Over-the-Counter medicines and other multivitamins to ensure that they maintain good health. And for everyone that came, they left with food items including rice, beverages, noodles, tomato puree, among others in good measures.

Spiritual leader of the mission, Mr. Steve Akindasa, said , “Some people think Paincare Outreach is a non-governmental  organisation, but we think of it as a mission that is out to provide succour for the most needy and poverty stricken members of communities, while also delivering to them an opportunity to embrace God through Jesus Christ.”

For the Chapel of Miracles, Area Zone 1, Region 2 parish of the Reedemed Christian Church, the host of the March 16 outreach, this was overwhelming. For a church that harbours not more than 100 people on a boisterous Sunday to get converts that triple that number, nothing evidently compares.

“Today is one day that we had wished for as a church,” Pastor in charge of the parish, Mr. Gbolagade Olanrewaju disclosed in an interview. “We came here and built this church on a filthy portion of the street that is regularly visited by sanitation officers because of the level of dirt. But we have transformed the place and for this event today, I think God has shown that we are going to touch the lives of the residents even deeper,” Olanrewaju said.

Paincare Outreach is an emotional end to the humble story of Mr. Peter Ebere Nwosu, who now presides over Greenlife Pharmaceutical LTD as managing director. The story did not start on that note, as he disclosed in an interview. “Seeing people scramble for food makes me feel so sad. Each time I see that I cry because of my background,” he said.

He explained the reason behind this emotion. “I and my siblings saw and felt hardship. We lost our dad quite early in our lives and the burden was totally on my mother to bring us up,” he said. “One particular Christmas day, we had no single grain of rice in the house. You know what that means. Then my mother decided to go to the farm to see if she could get any kind of food at all for us to eat, but in the farm, there was nothing to bring home and she could not face us back in the house with empty basket. So she broke down in tears. on her way back, she ran into a man who gave her 50 kobo (fifty kobo), and with that she was able to get us something at least to eat. But you can imagine what kind of food 50 kobo would make,” he disclosed.

Continuing, he said, “One day she fell sick and we could not do anything to help her because we could not afford even the cheapest medical bills in any hospital at all. After that day, I prayed to God and made a vow to him that any time he blesses me, I will do everything to help people in need. That is exactly what am doing today,” he said.
So far, Paincare has touched not less than 20, 000 (twenty thousand) lives directly, as it provides succour for widows even as far as in the South east, while also giving food and in some cases monetary relief for people in dire needs.  Within the last one year, scores of communities have been visited by Paincare’s rare benevolence. Shasha, Igando, Ilaro, Isheri-Olofin, and Yakoyo and Nanka in Anambra State, among others.   For each outreach, Paincare spends not less than 10 million naira on foods, beverages, medicines and logistics that could cater for as much as 5, 000 people on the day.

This year, Nwosu said 14 outreaches would be held across various communities. Meanwhile, he said the outreach would help set up three additional parishes of RCCG in various parts of the country, just as it has cultivated plans to build a hospital for the poor as part of ensuring that less privileged Nigerians have access to quality healthcare.

Dr. Femi Ajagun, head of the medical team described the outreach as laudable, adding that religion has a lot to do in promoting good health among the people. “This is what Nigerians need. More Nigerians need to assist the downtrodden more by embarking on such missions,” Ajagun said.

“We all know that prevention is better than cure but one can only prevent certain ailments if we go into communities and catch the danger signs of these ailments,” he said.

On common ailments as recorded by the team in their past visitations, Ajagun disclosed that undiagnosed high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, upper respiratory tract infection, diarrhoea, malaria, typhoid and pneumococcal disease are some of the common diseases among most of the people that the team attended to.

Ajagun also revealed that where the team is not able to provide medical succour for those they attend to, the patients are referred to general hospitals for further treatments.