DUKEM – Khalid Fitensa, a young Dukem resident came to Dukem Health Center after hearing the public call for free of charge services given by volunteer Korean and Ethiopian health professionals in a program organized by ECOS STEEL MILL PLC.
He got a physiotherapy treatment that gave him relief from his back pain. It is a crucial opportunity to the people who couldn’t go far for such services to be treated here for free of charges, he said. “The most exciting thing in the treatment is that the Korean doctors were paying medical attention to us speak our language without translator,” Khalid noted.
Even some patients who have money will face extra suffrage for having no information about the right health institution to their sickness. However such services will make you feel healthy even by saving time, energy and money, according to him. It is not only Khalid that get free medical service at the center, hundreds residents of the town also get relief from their pain in the service that was opened to the public since Saturday.
According to Tamirat Mamo, Dukem Health Center Director the service helped the town residents to get payment free medical treatment and hundreds are now visiting the center per day. The center doesn’t have enough human and material resource. However, the service enabled it to render services that are used to only provide in hospitals, he said.
The service that has been given by more than 20 Korean doctors in various specialties including physiotherapy, dental, neurosurgery treatment helped the center to share experience and serve many patients, as to Tamirat.
Doctor JungTaik Junm a dentist is from Korea hospital in Addis Ababa use the opportunity to serve more peoples without payment. As to him, keeping the health and smiles of Ethiopians is a service to him to payback the sacrifice that Ethiopians paid in the Korean War. He serves about 15 Ethiopians with dental extraction and implant treatments each day.
The community medical service is mainly intended to those who have no chance to get the treatment due to low income said ECOS Chief Finance Officer Boyoung Kim. “It is part of the community services that the company provides to the surrounding community.” The program is organized in collaboration with Korean Hospital in Addis Ababa and some volunteer physicians who came from Korea.
The company has planned to organize similar program in each three months. Besides, the company also gives extra services to the surrounding community through facilitating infrastructures like pure water and electricity, he noted. ECOS that was begun production last year and has the capacity to produce about 300,000MT steel per annum is a South Korean Steel company located in Dukem, at the outskirts of Addis Ababa.
The Ethiopian Herald, September 3/2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
