BY OLASUNKANMI AKONI & MONSUR OLOWOOPEJO

LAGOS—GOVERNOR Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, yesterday, called on residents to be conscious of their eating and drinking habits in their own interest, as he flagged off the state’s free surgical treatment for 53 goitre patients in the state.

It will be recalled that a team of medical experts deployed by the state government to Badagry area of the state, had earlier commenced investigation into the causes of high prevalence of goitre in the area with a view to finding the remote and immediate causes of the neck-swelling disorder.

The programme, a state government intervention due to the high cases of goitre recorded in Badagry area of the state, where several patients were discovered, is the first phase in the series of the exercise to be carried out for patients in the state.

Goitre, is an enlarged thyroid gland that causes difficulty with swallowing, strenuous or noisy breathing and even change in voice of sufferer.

Fashola at the ‘surgical intervention of the Lagos State Goitre Control Programme,” at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja, said that the intervention was to give patients a new lease of life while the government was working on a preventive strategy.