By Ekaette Bassey

Federal lawmaker representing Adavi/Okehi Federal Constituency, Hon Joseph Asuku Bello has reiterated his commitment to providing quality healthcare and achieving universal health coverage in line with agenda of this administration.

He made this known at the annual conference of the Endocrine and Metabolism Society of Nigeria (EMSON) held in Abuja on Thursday, September 26, 2019.

Speaking as a guest at the event, Hon Bello stated that the role of education in preventing most avoidable colossal health damages can never be over emphasized.

He stated the place of grassroots and aggressive advocacy from the part of stakeholders in the health sectors and lawmakers respectively, as machineries that will deliver adequate information to the people and reduce the looming health crisis in Nigeria.

“Many diseases and medical problems have a “health education campaign” or “awareness campaign” associated with them. The goal of such a campaign is to make people conscious of the impact of diseases and to provide them information about the disease if they want to learn more about it”.

“The purpose of the campaign is to increase public awareness of the effects of lifestyle on health; to enable persons to assess which life-style changes would be most conducive to their health; to stimulate information-seeking behavior and; to foster the development of local health promotion activities and referral networks”, he stated.

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The lawmaker welcomed and applauded the choice of theme for this year’s conference of the society, Endocrine and Metabolism Society of Nigeria (EMSON), adding that no matter the efforts of stakeholders, if the people are not aware of the issues relating to the disease, it’s causes, preventions and complications, we will continue to go in circle or no results.

As a member of the House Committee on Health Care Services, Hon Bello also pledged his support and continued collaboration with the society and other stakeholders in the health sector to bring to the health-related matters to the front burner of national discuss.

“Presently, my office is working with Professor Anumah to present on the floor of the House, THE PREVENTION OF LIFESTYLE DISEASES BILL which hopefully, will help to occasion a reduction of these diseases in Nigeria, when eventually passed to law”, he added.

At the opening of the conference, yesterday was the Deputy Senate President, represented by his Chief of Staff Dr. Otive Igbuzor, Chairman Senate Committee on Health Care Services, Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe, the representatives of both Minister for Women Affairs and Health were also in attendance. Also, other dignitaries, especially from the health sector, were in attendance.

At the end of his good will message, he congratulated the society and wish them well as the conference continues today Friday, 27th September 2019.

VANGUARD