A WELCOME ADDRESS PRESENTED ON THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY CEREMONY OF JUDE OPARA MEMORIAL OLD PEOPLES HOME

22nd APRIL, 2018

It is with great joy in our heart that we welcome you all who came to witness this memorable occasion of the One Year Anniversary Ceremony of Jude Opara Memorial Old Peoples Home, established as a special home for elderly people on 23rd April, 2017.

Jude Opara Memorial Old Peoples Home (JOMOPH) was purely established as a non-profit making organization with the utmost objective of improving the quality of life of the facility residents by providing them with decent accommodation, health care and other services. It will be of great essence for us to listen to the story of what happened in our State, told by one of us here today on his first visit to the home. It will help us to have deep understanding of what this home stand for. According to him there was a woman whose children lived abroad, leaving their mother in the hands of a mentally deranged sister. Money wasn’t the problem of the woman but lack of care and attention was the major issue. She became sick and went to FMC Owerri, but had nobody to direct her to see a doctor, she stayed there till evening and returned back without seeing a doctor. Nobody saw the old woman for days till neighbors started perceiving offensive odor in the compound. When they approached the old woman’s room, it was ascertained that the bad air was coming out of her room. Her door was forced open and it was discovered that the woman was already dead and the body decaying.

JOMOPH is a place specially designed for our elderly parents and relatives (Ulo ndi Agadi), where adequate attention and quality care services are provided to them. The Home has residential care facilities with quality accommodation, and supported by a 24-hour health care services. We have a management team whose hearts work in unison with that of the founder.

Truly, I see a team who are servants of Humanity. The team consist of the Medical Director, Attending Physicians, Registered Nurses, Auxiliary Nurses, Chaplain, Physical Therapist and many other workers who contribute their quota in the smooth running of the Home. I would like to say without mincing words that JOMOPH is not just an ordinary home like our various homes, but it is an extra-ordinary home set aside for service to humanity in a very unique way. I would like to correct an impression here. Many of us think that sending an elderly person to a home like this, means abandonment.

Bringing your old person to Jude Opara Memorial Old Peoples Home doesn’t connote abandonment, but it is another higher level of care-giving to your elderly parents or relatives because there are people who will be with them 24/7 in your absence. Jude Opara Memorial Old Peoples Home is not operational only in Nigeria, it has also been registered in California, United States. This is to say that we are not standing alone in this noble assignment. We have foreign based medical practitioners who give professional advice where necessary. It might also interest you to know that the founder of this noble home is a practicing nurse in United States, who has bagged various professional trainings in the country, and most of our drugs for treatment are all from there.

THE REASON BEHIND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THIS HOME

The establishment of Jude Opara Memorial Old Peoples Home was necessitated by the frequent death report of our people at home which was rising in an alarming rate and if nothing is done, it will get to a point that in villages there will only be children without parents. This is to say that the greater number of our elders will no longer be seen in a short while as a result of lack of quality care and medical attention. Thinking about the kind of abandonment our elderly people experience in Nigeria, the Founder was touched to do something. She first started with a free medical outreach program for the elderly people in her community of birth, which she still runs from time to time.

The first day I came to this facility, I was amazed with the kind of thing I saw here. In my narrow-mindedness, I asked whether the founder doesn’t know what to do with money but I later realized that she was fulfilling her calling. She just has a great passion for charity and I see a Mother Theresa in her. It is in her to be a source of relief to those whose lives are characterized with abandonment by giving them a better home. It will be highly regrettable that we should allow this great idea of our sister to go into extinction because if such a thing happens, I bet you, the universe may not be happy with us. Let us therefore, join hands together to promote the services of Jude Opara Memorial Old Peoples Home.

It requires our time, moral support and an extension of charity towards the elders in the home. I want to assure everyone that being in this home doesn’t mean abandonment.
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Apart from having accommodation for the elderly people, we also run home-care services to the elderly people in their various homes. We don’t just go there to keep them company, we also ensure that they keep to proper medication as well as ensuring that their dwelling place is good for their health. Also we give special attention to people living with Diabetes and high blood pressure. Our foreign drugs will go a long way in keeping them safe and healthy.

We thank you all once more for your time and pray that the good Lord will grant you journey mercy to your respective homes as you leave this place.