Desmond Elliot Gives back, offers Health Insurance scheme to constituents
A member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Desmond Elliot, has offered to assist 700 elderly people in his constituency with a free health insurance scheme.
Speaking at the inauguration of the scheme in Lagos on Sunday, Elliot said the programme will cover free drugs for hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, physiotherapy, laboratory services and anti-malaria.
The lawmaker representing Surulere Constituency 1 used the opportunity to present 500 post-secondary school students with the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) forms.
The UTME form, according to the lawmaker, is to encourage enrolment into tertiary education and raise the literacy bar. He said the gesture was part of activities to celebrate his 49th birthday.
He said, “Well, the focus of today is on our elderly in Surulere. For the past two years, we have been doing a health insurance scheme. We started with 300 elderly people, and last year we did 500.
“This year we are moving up to 1000, but for today we have counted about 700. What is the idea? We are to help the elderly because, mostly, they don’t suffer from malaria and typhoid as much as diabetes, high blood pressure, and others.
“So the health insurance scheme is to have coverage that will cover diabetes management and physiotherapy, among others. We have about seven illnesses that are common among the elderly.
“The second one is that we are giving out 500 UTME forms for those who have WASC. However, coming here, we are seeing more people, and we will accommodate them as well.
“All these are just to celebrate my birthday and to say thank you to God for sparing my life and my family because my wife and I just survived a major fire incident about 10 days ago. However, we will not relent in giving back to the constituents that have called us to serve them. We appreciate God that everybody came out alive and everything is fine, and to God be the glory.”
Speaking on the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) during the Saturday by-election at the Surulere Federal Constituency 1, Elliot thanked the electorates for electing Faud Laguda to represent them at the Red Chambers.
“I thanked God for Hon. Faud Laguda for coming out victorious in the Surulere Federal House of Representatives by-election that was held yesterday.
“We can assure residents of Surulere that his representation will be top-notch. The Chief of Staff to the President, who is our leader in Surulere, has not left us, and he is still with us to give us adequate guidance and to help us through.
“We are adding even more in terms of the dividend of democracy to our people. If you recall, two weeks ago we were here when we gave out food items to over 700 widows and two cars to the youths.”
