Over 1000 residents in the Obalende area of Lagos State at the weekend received free medical screenings and food items at a programme organized by Apostle Phillips Ministries Inc.
The outreach was organized to support free health services to the indigent, as well as to promote evangelism, morality, integrity and Christian virtues in the community.
The outreach tagged ‘Let My People Go 2023’ was organized as part of the United States America-based church Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scheme to impact the community.
Highlights of the outreach included a crusade and as well as medical checkups, distribution of free drugs, glasses and food items to all participants.
The senior pastor of the ministry, Apostle Akintunde Phillips, said God laid it in his heart to come back to Nigeria and help the less privileged. He said, Because of the situation in the country right now, it was laid in my heart to give back.
“So I’ll be given back some palliatives and I have about 20 doctors with me who are on the ground right now. Checking the health of the people, giving them free glasses and checking their high blood pressure, dental, and many other things like that. And this is the second time and coming by the grace and mercy of God.”
One of the doctors, Eyinade Adewale, the target is to reach 1000 residents and so far 400 people have been attended to. “This is an outreach sponsored by Apostle Phillips. We are attending to patients and people have been coming in their numbers. We have about three departments here, we have general consultations. We have the eyes team and the dental team as well.
“And people are showing up in their numbers. When we came here this morning, the target audience was about 1000 people. I think so far, about 400 people have been attended to.”
Another doctor, Bayere Solomon, said “We have seen various categories of persons but there are a few surgical cases we have seen. We have seen a case of a hernia and what we do is to get their phone numbers because there is a provision for them to be taken care of.
“We can’t do it here because we didn’t come with the facilities. After this conference, the organizers of the outreach will reach out to them and take them to the hospital where the surgery will be done free of charge.
“It will be wrong to generalize because Nigeria is a very big country but I think the majority of people are actually conscious of their health. But the economic realities make some persons, especially on general medical complications.
And I will say that there is a will to take care of them but sometimes we are not able to follow up because of the financial implications. Drugs are going up every day just like every other thing in the market.
“The advice I will give is that we should take advantage of any opportunity that we see. Personally, I have seen that most people who have gone ahead of others are trying to look for one or two ways to give back to society.
“In the past few months, I have been involved in many outreaches sponsored by Nigerians. And most Nigerians want to contribute their little quota to give back, so we can take advantage of such opens available to us.”