By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Federal Government has made commitment to the sustenance of the Rapid Result Initiative (RRI) programme in the health sector, under which ten thousand surgeries are being performed on the indigent poor across the country.
The programme was developed last year by the Health Ministry and targets the vulnerable populations who have high disease burden requiring different types of high tech surgeries.
Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, during an interactive with newsmen explained that the RRI would be scaled up this year to accommodate more vulnerable people with free health care services and surgeries in the Teaching Hospitals across the nation.
The Minister said RRI has created an opportunity to scale up other health interventions such as screening for diseases and upgrade of hospital facilities including laboratory services.
Professor Adewole explained that different innovative programmes were also implemented last year to enhance health care especially for women and children to reduce maternal and child deaths in the country.
One of such is the five hundred million dollars loan distributed to States for obstetric care and enhanced nutrition among children.
Under the RRI scheme, 3,000 surgeries out of the 10,000 offered by the FG have already been carried out while the programme is still ongoing.
Surgeries performed under the initiative cuts across minor and major surgeries, such as cleft lip palate, brèast lump and mastectomy, fibroid, cervical cancer and other gynaecological related surgeries.
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