MUSLIM SOCIETY’S UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE DRIVE CHEERS GOVT

By Kalobwe Bwalya

THE Government has hailed the Muslims Social and Welfare Society for its relentless efforts in ensuring that the country achieves Universal Health Coverage by 2027.

Lusaka District Health officer Astrida Maseka said the Muslim Society had taken health services closer to the people through their medical camps which were community-based.

In an interview, Ms. Maseka said the Muslim Social and Welfare Society helped the Government to ensure that citizens were healthy and had access to health facilities.

She disclosed that over 10,000 people had been screened following a one-day medical camp in Lusaka’s John Howard Township from the Muslim Society and Welfare Society medical camp.

Ms. Maseko disclosed that the Society offered free screening which included testing for tuberculosis (TB) and cancer among many others which benefited the people in the area.

She stated that the Society has been working with the Government in the past months and people in various communities had benefited largely, especially women and children.

She said the move by the Society needed to be commended because the Government had a task to ensure that the people had access to decent healthcare as well as access to health facilities.

“The society has come on board to give free medical services to the people of John Howard which has seen a large turn up from the area and surrounding communities and that the Government was pleased that the society had continued rendering support by ensuring that every citizen had access to universal health coverage,” said Ms. Maseko.

And Ms. Maseko said the Society targeted to screen over 2000 people and had so far managed to screen a total of 1,500 people.

She said the Society has come up with a deliberate policy to ensure that it supplemented the Government’s efforts by delivering quality healthcare to the people.

“The Government is grateful to the Society for the continued supporting the health sector in attaining a healthy nation and in the past months, the Society has come on board and in Lusaka alone, close to 10,000 people have been screened for different ailments,” she said.