By Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu
Succour came the way of sickle cell patients in Abia and beyond on June 22 when a state of the art Sickle Diagnosis and Treatment Centre was commissioned in Umuahia, the capiatal of Abia State. The centre was built by the Vicar Hope Foundation, the pet project of Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu, the wife of Abia State governor.
The commissioning of the centre featured an awareness procession along the streets of Umuahia to which culminated in the tape cutting ceremony of the centre and rounded off with a symposium at the Michael Okpara Auditorium Umuahia.
A major highlight of the event is that it coincided with 2017 World Sickle Cell Awareness Day .This event has been held since 2008 to help increase public knowledge and raise awareness of Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) and the pains sufferers and their families go through.The date was chosen to commemorate the day on which a resolution was officially adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, recognising SCD as a public health concern.
The importance of diagnosis and treatment centre cannot be over- emphasised.It will offer a huge relief to sickle cell patients by providing treatment at a susbsidised rate.According to reports, the disease has posed a serious concern to humankind as millions of people around the world, including both adults and children suffer from it. Tyhe World Health Organisation, WHO describes it as a potentially fatal disease and one of the main causes of premature death amongst children under the age of five in various African countries.
The disease, which is regarded as a major genetic disease in most countries in Sub- Saharan Africa,is a genetic blood disorder that affects the haemoglobin within the red blood cells .The recurrent pain and complications caused by the disease can interfere with many aspects of the patient’s life, including education, employment and psychosocial development.The sickle-cell trait is now known to be widespread, reaching its highest prevalence in parts of Africa as well as among people with origins in equatorial Africa, the Mediterranean basin and Saudi Arabia. In Africa, the highest prevalence of sickle-cell trait occurs between latitudes 15° North and 20° South, ranging between 10% and 40% of the population in some areas.
The commissioning of the centre has added another feather to the hall of achievements of the governor’s wife through the instrumentality of Vicar Hope Foundation.
It will be recalled that as part of the activities marking the fourth quarterly meeting of the Southern Governors’ Wifes’ Forum which was held in Umuahia, Abia State capital, Vicar Hope Foundation, the pet project of Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu, wife of Abia State Governor was launched recently.The Foundation is designed to (a) assisting the physically challenged and vulnerable persons, (b) to provide a platform for enhancing the status of women and children through education, empowerment, welfare and healthcare provision (c) to locate, and establish indigent widows and other person as well as give love and succour to less privileged, the motherless babies and young orphans, (d) to material assistance, financial support, moral assistance and social amenities to the less privileged as well as impart skills that would make them self reliant. (e) to carry out enlightenment campaigns, to sensitize against and combat deadly diseases, health challenges, poverty, obnoxious widowhood and teenage girl practices, as well as promote women and child rights.
Also, through the instrumentality of the Foundation, accommodations have been provided to widows and the indigent in the Abia society.Prominent among them are two-bedroom bungalows built for two indigent widows in Ohuhu and Amuzukwu communities, both in Umuahia North Local Government Area of the State. Prior to this, she had built seven bungalows for six indigent widows and one blind man in some local government areas in the state.
The first lady’s philanthropic gestures have extended to other areas other than donation of buildings to the indigent and the establishment of the Sickle Cell Diagnosis and Treatment Centre to deworming of school children in some local government areas of the state. Through her skills acquisition programme, Abia, in the days ahead will witness a highly- skilled and productive populace. This will ensure a high reduction in crime. The argument is that when the energies of the teeming youth population are meaningfully engaged in productive activities, the tendency to engage in criminal activities would wane to the barest minimum. It is a widely- held view that” an idle man is a devil’s workshop”. The programme is expected to equip 100 participants of the first phase of the programme with equipment and start- up capital to enable them become small scale entrepreneurs.Already, the foundation has facilitated various skills acquisition trainings in conjunction with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) for fifty youths drawn from oil producing communities of Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State.
Indeed, Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu deserves a pat in the back for her philantrophic gestures. She has truly demonstrated the words of Eldon Tanne that “ service is the rent we pay for living on earth”and some scriptures emphasise the need for us to render humanitarian services; and the scriptures “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbour, ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you’—when you already have it with you. — Proverbs 3:27-28; “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.” — Proverbs 19:17.
