JCTP - Japan consider the poor

The lack of adequate medical care for the vast majority of Nigerians compels us to continue the free health care programs Family Care has been involved with over the last several years. Every year we have seen an increase in the number of projects that we are able to fit into one year, as well as in the number of people we are able to reach with our free health care programs. The majority of the patients that have benefited from the medical projects that have taken place over the years would most likely not have had the opportunity to receive proper medical treatment.

On a typical medical project Family Care and it's collaborating partners Pro-Health International, Eye Care Africa, and Smile Africa, which have the same mission and aim to uplift the underprivileged in the rural areas, are able to assemble a team of 35-60 volunteers for each project. The volunteer team of medical doctors, pediatricians, surgeons, ophthalmologists, optometrists, and dentists will spend a week at a rural hospital and treat as many patients as time will permit.

The local population usually will arrive at the project venue in many more numbers than the volunteer team is able to keep up with. The need for the medical treatment is very apparent, seeing the number of people that come to the project site desperately seeking medical treatment. Throughout the duration of the project week, the otherwise quiet hospital is transformed into a beehive of activity, with thousands of people receiving medical treatment and thousands more hoping to have a chance to see a doctor.

The dedicated team of volunteers will work tirelessly through each day attending to the plights of the many needy patients. While many of the patients receive treatment for more basic ailments, some arrive with very large growths and hernias, which have been allowed to escalate to such proportions due to the lack of proper attention.

Many have carried these enormous growths of up to ten years simply because they could not afford to pay for an operation. Without the attention that is given to them on the medical project, it is very likely that they would have continued to carry their ailments for many more years with not hope of relief. The patients leave the hospital giving thanks for this rare opportunity to receive the much-needed treatment, and the volunteers feel the same joy in extending it to them.

In the year 2001 we were able to conduct 15 free health care projects, treating 53,738 patients, making a total of 139,502 patients treated since 1998. We are as enthused about these statistics as you may be in reading them. These medical projects have been largely sponsored by government bodies, individuals, associations, cooperate bodies, and by the volunteers themselves, who see the need of these programs, and contribute their resources and time towards this very worthy cause.

We received a tremendous response from the local business community and individuals, who over the years have proven their dedication to these projects by their faithful and generous support.

With all the many complicated aspects involved in conducting a free health care project, we hope to portray most of all a message of hope and God's love. This will in trun encourage the indigenes of these rural areas to do their part in uplifting their fellow man, by sharing a little of what they have with others, slowly changing their surroundings and Nigeria for the better.