By Daniel Obi
Copyright businessday
There was an atmosphere of joy, excitement and gratitude among Nigeria’s senior citizens recently in Lagos when OneHealth, in collaboration with NNPC HMO, delivered a wellness program that combined preventive healthcare guidance and practical healthcare offers to selected elderly beneficiaries.
The outreach held at Eagle Club in Surulere for NNPC, Shell, and Chevron retirees was considered important as it is central to ensuring the fitness and longevity of the aged.
During the programme, officials of OneHealth engaged the retirees in physical exercises, health checks and health education that focused on checkmating and managing illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and cognitive reduction which elderly world-wide are susceptible to.
Sugar tests and BP tests were also conducted freely on them and those with abnormal readings were advised against taking certain foods such as red meat.
Describing the outreach as a CSR activity, Paul Kingsley Owoicho, Business Development manager of OneHealth said the engagement with the elderly was a promotion of wellness and medication- use- review.
He said the objective is to ensure that OneHealth caters for its clients first and that “we are not transactional driven. We ensure that our clients, wherever they are understand health management and get the right medication at the right time in the right place”.
Owoicho further said that OneHealth appreciates the roles the retirees played in the society and service to the nation and “we have taken the responsibility to ensure they live healthy and ensure that their medications do not exhaust”.
Tayo Opanubi, National President of Shell Pensioners in Nigeria and also the Chairman of the Lagos Branch who was excited about the opportunity of the health education said his “members learned a lot about lifestyle changes and we also learned the tricks of prolonging our life and it’s important that we stick to the advice given to us today”.
He also appreciated the medical checkup which was provided. He advised government and other organisations to emulate how Shell is doing by extending healthcare to all its pensioners in Nigeria.
Speaking to BusinessDay, Taiwo Dada, coordinator of client support and retention for NNPC HMO said the engagement with Shell retiree team in collaboration with OneHealth is beginning of such collaborative engagements. Though it is starting in Lagos but they hope to extend it nationwide.
Taiwo said OneHealth supplies out of stock medication to their retirees. She however clarified that they do have quarterly engagement with stakeholders in all the zones in Nigeria as this was the first partnership of its kind.
OneHealth a foremost pharmacy partner supporting NNPC HMO and numerous HMO staff with timely and reliable access to medications has long served as a bridge between patients and providers.
