Kofi Ampeah Woode
Making EXERCISE EAGLE CLAWS ’23 tangibly visible to communities within which the Field Training Exercise (FTX) is held, a medical outreach was held for the township of Tolon, in the Tolon District of the Northern Region, to further boost the Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) between the Ghana Armed Forces and its community.
The healthcare rally was held on Wednesday, December 7, 2023, at the forecourt of the Tolon Naa – Major (Maj) Suleman Abubakar (Rtd), and had over five hundred (500) townsfolk participating, with some requesting for the program to be extended for those who had traveled out of town to attend, the next day.
Prior to the commencement of the outreach, a delegation led by the Ghana Army’s Director, Army Public Relations, who doubles as Civil Affairs Lead for EX EAGLE CLAWS ‘23 – Lieutenant Colonel (Lt Col) Sena Affanyi, paid a courtesy call on the Tolon Naa.
During the outreach, Lt Col Affanyi educated the locals on the Ministry of National Security’s campaign – “See Something, Say Something”, after which other personnel took turns to speak to the health education of the townsfolk, whiles they served them with water and biscuits to sustain their wait for their turn, to be attended to, medically.
Captain Betty Ayisi – Senior Medical Officer (SMO), Army Special Operations Training Schools (ASOTS), indicated that a lot of health conditions were identified during the rally, topmost being hypertension, followed by malaria, typhoid-fever, urinary tract infection (UTI), and a lot of eye-related cases.
The SMO who supervised the outreach which attended to a number of pediatric cases, also revealed that most of the patients of hypertension identified, were aware of their hypertensive condition, but have stopped taking their medication, thus their blood pressures were high.
The exercise was observed by a team from the United States Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF).
Kofi Ampeah-Woode, Tolon
