Health

Actions to improve health standards
in Kwara State

ABOUT THIS CAMPAIGN

What We’ve Done 

Alaafia Kwara Indigent Medical Fund

The Indigent Medical Fund was established to help children of indigent parents with no access to lifesaving medical treatment due to financial deprivation. Mrs Saraki launched the Fund with a personal grant of N1.2m after seeing a child die in a hospital because the parents could not pay for a blood transfusion. It now provides a monthly endowment for the support of such patients, accessible through referral by a medical professional at designated state hospitals.
The fund currently caters to both the financial and medical needs of the destitute, the sick, the orphaned, the motherless and the handicapped. In cases where the Fund has received direct requests for assistance, we refer the patients to doctors for examination and proper diagnoses, purchase drugs for them and settle their medical bills. This also ensures they undergo necessary further examination and follow doctors’ counsel on drugs and nutrition. Some beneficiaries are also placed on an interim monthly upkeep allowance, while all beneficiaries receive ongoing counselling and social support from our trained counsellors.

Alaafia Kwara Mother & Child Survival Scheme

Motherless babies are provided with food supplements in the form of infant formula weaning nutritional support. Parents of multiple births are given cash and materials, while orphans are placed on scholarships or their guardians given money to start them in a trade, so that they can ultimately fend for themselves. Since 2003, about 2000 people have benefitted from the scheme, while over 30 orphans receive ongoing sponsorship for extended family careers. To date, 56 motherless babies have received substantial assistance from the Fund.

Alaafia Kwara Special Cases

Occasionally, there are cases requiring a financial commitment in excess of the Indigent Medical Fund’s resources, for which Mrs. Saraki initiates dedicated fundraising for their treatment. So far, ten such cases have been treated, including treatment of ailments ranging from heart disease and orthopaedic defects to other deformities, some of which have required reformative surgery trips to countries like India, Israel and South Africa.

Alaafia Kwara Community Health Access Programme; Iyana Bacita Health Point

One of Mrs Saraki’s dreams is to bring accessible and affordable, if not free, quality healthcare to all citizens of Kwara State. This dream was realised in 2009 when, in collaboration with Hygeia Nigeria Limited and the Dutch Health Insurance Fund PharmAccess, AK opened its first Health Point at Bacita Junction in Moro Local Government Area (LGA). This well-equipped and modern basic primary health facility catered for the needs of thousands of people from twenty-five surrounding rural communities – as a replicable model towards a community of practice across every LGA in the state.

The AK Initiative provided registration fee fund assistance and advocacy in the registration of 7000 rural dwellers, particularly pregnant women, under the Kwara State Community Health Insurance Scheme by May 2011, when the Iyana Bacita Health Point was integrated into the Kwara State Government Hospitals Management System.

Other Alaafia Kwara interventions

These are targeted at providing the necessary infrastructure for efficient implementation of our programmes and ensuring equality of access to general healthcare provisions for the populace. We have provided improved facilities and medical equipment to two of the most prominent state- and federal government- owned hospitals in Kwara State:

Children’s Specialist Hospital, Centre Igboro, Ilorin, 2003

Alaafia Kwara funded and facilitated the renovation of the Children’s Specialist Hospital, Centre Igboro, providing:
• Automated borehole as source of clean pipe- borne water, hitherto unavailable
• Children’s Ward (fully equipped)
• Isolation Ward (fully equipped)
• Doctor’s Consulting Room
• Nurses’ Bay
• Mosquito Netting throughout facility
• Bathrooms in Maternity Unit
• Donation of an Ambulance

University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, 2004

• Neonatal resuscitation units
• Infant pulse oximeters

What we for

AK works, both independently and as one of many non-governmental organisations, with the line ministries in the state to improve the citizen take-up of public health policies in the state. This includes lobbying for:
  • Eradication of practices of female genital mutilation
  • Eradication of tuberculosis
  • Awareness of best practices for maternal health and child survival
  • Awareness for increased uptake in compliance with immunisation policy of government
  • Advocacy on sanitation and clean environment
  • Awareness of prevention and safe practices on HIV

Actions to improve health standards in Kwara State