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Primary Healthcare Project in Lagos, Nigeria

October 03, 2008 - Nigeria

by Sope Ogunyemi

As Nigeria Project Director, I traveled to Nigeria on a fact finding trip from September 3rd – 15th. While there, the goal was to evaluate the feasibility of establishing RMF’s pilot health care clinic in the Aguda/Coker area of Lagos, in partnership with Afodise, a local NGO, and the Lagos State Government.

During the trip, we were able to connect with our contacts at Afodise and Lagos State Government to begin moving the project forward. We finalized the community in which we would establish the clinic, Coker Village in the Surulere Local Government area.

We were also able to visit the area in order to survey the need and were very happy to hear from local residents that a clinic is needed and would be much appreciated. (The pictures included in this post are of the Coker Village area in which the clinic would be established) We are currently working on compiling demographic data for the area as well as beginning the registration process for the clinic. In addition we were able to connect with a real estate agent in the area and are in negotiations for a building to house the clinic!

Finally, we were also pleased to connect with Dr. Ben Nkechika in order to discuss the urgent need for basic health care in the other parts of the country, in particular the Niger Delta region. We hope to move forward on the establishing clinics there once we have completed the Lagos State Pilot clinic. We are very pleased with the progress made on what was a very busy trip. Please look out for more detailed updates soon!

A big thank you to the following people for their support of Real Medicine Foundation while we were in Nigeria: Mr. Lawale Edun, Dr. Jide Idris, Dr. and Mrs. Mike Ileka, and Chief (Mrs.) Ogunyemi, Mr. Olubola Sonoiki, and Mrs. Tokunbo Orekoya.