I Believe In Connecting With The People, Providing Medicare… It’s A Calling, Says Esorhe Mark
Dr. (Mrs.) Esorhe Rosemarie Mark, a medical doctor and wife of Senate President, David Mark, is the Director, Voluntary Promotive Initiative (VPI), National Voluntary Medical and Surgical Promotive International Support. (VPI) is a voluntary health support organization made up of competent medical, non-medical professionals and concerned citizens who have come together to support the health services in rural areas and also fulfill their oath to the profession and humanity.
The non-governmental initiative also helps in Information Technology training of youths in rural areas. With Esorhe’s team, she had taken the services of the organization to various states and the Federal Capital Territory.
In a chat with Oyindamola Lawal, she spoke about her life, projects, activities and challenges.
Growing up
Growing up was beautiful; I can’t say it was bad. I grew up in Ibadan and it was a lovely life actually, in those days, colonial life was not too bad.
Family background
I am one of nine children, my mother was a very good Catholic; actually, she was a knight in the Catholic Church and my father was an Anglican. Eventually, some of us were Catholic and some Anglican, but we are eight children surviving now; my elder brother passed on.
Educational background
My education started in Ibadan. I went to Abadina in University of Ibadan among others; those are the primary schools. When Awolowo who was my father’s friend, we started free education; every one of us was taken from private school to national school. Briefly, I was in Saint James School in Benin and later went to Queen’s College, which later became Queen’s School, Ibadan for my secondary school, and later went to Queen’s College, Lagos for my O’ level. I also went to College of Medicine, Idi Araba, Lagos; we like to say College of Medicine, we don’t like to say University of Lagos, but of course College of Medicine is for University of Lagos. I did some Post graduate in ENT, Complimentary Medicine and I am still learning.
Professional engagement
I was a House Officer at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), then I worked with Army Signal, Apapa. I was in Industrial Clinic, after which I started the clinic in Daily Times, Oregun; I was there when Tony Momoh was the Managing Director. Then, I went to Dublin, ran quite a few clinics, did a short course in Late Dr. Kunle Okupe’s ENT clinic.
I believe every mother should be with their children, so my children was leaving the country to study, I went with them and worked with Victoria High and Air Hospital and others in Dublin because when you are abroad, you run six month in each hospital, it's a kind of routine. I also worked in the Children Hospital, Hancock. I wanted to develop my interest in Natural Medicine and so I did a course in Complementary Natural Medicine and opened my private clinic in Dublin; I did Research in Clinics of Medicine and we did public lectures.
I believe the Almighty God gave every country the herbs that suit the country, so we really don’t have to use Chinese herbs because we have our own herbs here, and all we have to do is to perfect the dosages.
When my children grew up, I didn’t have any more excuse to stay abroad, so I had the opportunity to come home four to six times a year and ran an HMO briefly, which enabled me travel the whole of Nigeria; I had to have offices in the seven zones. I combined the NGO then with the work I did; you know trying to teach people about the NHIS in villages, I believe in rural areas, since they don’t have that much money so I put that project in place. I am a workaholic.
It was in one of my projects actually that I had a very bad accident and I was ill for about 18 months; I broke three bones in my neck and after that I dedicated my life more to the Almighty God. Suleja was my immediate ‘thank you project’ when I could walk properly and I said thank you to the Almighty God and started a micro finance. I started a lot of micro finance in Lagos before now. Of course, with my husband becoming Senate President, it gave us a new dimension to what I was doing. I believe that the more the Lord gives you, the more you make impact, so I was running HMO and the motto was "It's not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."
Experience as a doctor
I still love looking after people. When I was young, I had always wanted to look after people; to be a doctor and even in my university days, my prayer was for the Lord to give me healing hands and I believe He did, which I have used effectively. I love looking after someone and see the person get better. When it comes to ENT, you just have children; that was what I love about ENT but I couldn’t do pediatrics.
The worst experience for any doctor is when someone dies on you.
Meeting my husband, managing home front
When I met my husband I never knew we would marry; I just met him. When I was a doctor in Army Signals, he was a commandant for a little while. I did like people who are very good in what they do but eventually the Lord brought us together years later and it was good to have been friends before.
I always say that my husband's home front is Nigeria now. He is the number three citizen and one of the wonderful things that I love about my husband is that he believes that every Nigerian has a role to play; you must not hide your talent, or light your candle and put it under the table. So, the support that I gave him all over the place is like supporting him, because he is a very busy man.
The school run used to be there; the school run abroad is much different – drive your children to school, drive them to ballet, drive them to the pool and so on; here, it is the driver that does all that.
Now, we don’t have young children but of course, we have cooks and stewards because we do feed so many people regularly. So, managing him at this age is really just part of one’s job; maybe if I were younger, we will grapple with a lot of things.
Challenges in Life
I don’t believe in challenges, I don’t believe in that word; I believe in experiences but if you go to look at what you say a challenge is, first of all, it is being the best one can in the prevailing circumstances. I believe that there is no Nigerian out there that doesn’t want to do his or her own best but challenges or the experiences that surround one can prevent one but I believe that you need all these experiences in order to be in motion and your motion, frankly, is how you worship the Almighty God in everything you do.
On women as being harsh managers
Often women are not taken seriously, which is why it seems as if they are harsh managers. When you are managing somewhere, the respect people will give you is different from what they will give a man that holds the same position. So, in trying to achieve and remain on top, you must be seen to be harsh; that is how I would see it.
Key to career success
It is focusing and loving what you do; don’t just do something because you want to earn money. You may do something because you love it, it is part of your nature and then you must focus Inspite of distractions. I don’t mean you should step on people's toes, I love talking to primary school children because I actually like them to know that the step you must follow to where you are destined or told your God that you must be, you must follow it, don’t take it.
New project
The latest project was during the Ramadan period, which we gave out food to people who cannot afford it. We would actually re-parcel canned milk, sugar, salt among others and then the women will fry akara and then we give them out. We found out that in the mosque, women cook; we give them bags of rice, groundnut oil, salt and so on. We did that here in most of the local governments in Abuja and also back home in my husband's hometown.
We want to start with the teaching of sewing, so the machines will be coming. Now, there are 50 sewing machines that have been delivered to Port Harcourt with seven rolls of fabrics, scissors, tape rule amongst others. The teacher of this vocation is also to be taught. We have also given some machines to Ekiti State, five to each local government.
I have found out that in order for the project to work properly, you have to be on top of it, this is why we want to teach the teachers what to teach their students.
On Nigeria women
The future is positive if we support each other, become each other keeper and friends. We should learn from the past, from women who have been in similar positions and are now talking about high positions. We should learn from women who have been journalist, mothers and grandmothers. I went to Imo State recently and visited Mrs. Okpara (wife of the first Premier of Eastern Nigeria) and it was a perfect joy to see her. She told me what was expected of them at the time her husband was the Premier and she prayed for me.
Gone are the days when you could just be at home and you don't have any work to do; you have an education so you got to use it. I am glad that people are advocating that women should be educated, as you know there are more educated female in the north. So, with the education of the female gender, the future is bright. My only concern is that we women must recognize that we are women not men, even though it takes a lot to be what we want to be, we’ve got to remember that the Lord created us as women and that it is actually at home that she is a queen.
Women leadership
We are not given much chance to be leaders in Nigeria. Women who have executive positions are doing brilliantly well more than their male counterparts in the same positions, like Cecilia Ibru, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and others; also in your field of communication, where we have women on top – the newspapers and magazines. We do need more women in places of leadership; that is what we are all praying for. I believe the change must come and this country must involve more women in our leadership positions.
My advice to be a good leader, is being a good servant because being a leader is serving, whatever you expect any one under you to do, you must do best; if it is the sweeping of your office, if it is the dusting of your table, you’ve got to do it better. When you see yourself as a servant, it means you respect everybody around you. The most important thing is putting God first, if you put him first, He would lead you through.
Fulfilling childhood dream
Really, I am so happy at this point in my life because I am doing everything that I love— looking after people, traveling, being creative. I can feel like a child because I love children in primary schools, my grand children; so I am able to do everything — I like to sing, listen to music, I like to do some artwork, I love sewing and I support all these in the work I do. We are going to start catering in VPI. I love being a mother, grandmother and a wife and I am a happy person.
Inspiration
It is a calling; it is the right time. I believe it is what God wants me to do. So, whether my husband is Senate President or not does not matter. For these past 30 years, I have kind of paved my way towards reaching this promise. It didn't just start now. And by the grace of the Almighty God, there is a link between the mothers and the youths.
The Lord just naturally made it that it was time to form a link with elders. I am a missionary. I believe that this is a calling from the Almighty God and for anybody that comes on board; I say this is your voluntary work to please the Almighty God. You are not only serving Nigeria, you are serving God. So, if you to come on board, with that in mind, the Almighty God is going to release the help you need and in everything. This is my destiny and I am going ahead with it, regardless of any distraction that might come my way. That is my inspiration.
Leisure time
I enjoy what I do and when you enjoy what you do, it makes you happy. I have many friends, so I could have tea with those that are foreigners, like ambassadors’ wives and so on. My Nigerian friends, I go visiting them, we talk about our children as so on. I go to christening, weddings because that is what our children are doing, at this point in time; they are getting married, so we are the mothers of the day. I love my own company, I love reading, watching films — I love romantic comedy (I don't like horror) and of course I do love African Magic because I found out that the films shown of African Magic teaches us what the culture is and we have brilliant actors.
Philosophy of life
First of all, you should have a good character; you must be positive, spiritual and believe that the Almighty God, our Father in Heaven loves you. I believe do unto others as you like them do unto you. You must do your best always, be humble and love your neighbour.
Projection into the future
I will always say, before anyone project into the future, you must live the present as best as you can because it is your present that proceed to your future. If you are planning the future and you don't live your present well, you might end up not enjoying your future.
I see VPI working hand in hand with International Red Cross in Africa. It is only things set up in Africa that will understand what Africa needs because International Red Cross is for Disaster incidences and the whole of Africa have state of emergency all the time. So before it comes to a disaster, VPI would like to point it out to Red Cross, if we work together, to be able to prevent the disaster.
And as a mother, I will love all my children to come back home; they are presently abroad and they know that my being with them when I was abroad was to make sure that they know where they were coming from and that they can never ever be a leader in another country. They have been brought up to get the good things they can from abroad and come home eventually.
The Projects After My Heart
Establishment of Voluntary Promotive Initiative (VPI)
It is a national non-governmental, non political and a non-commercial venture. It’s a national health development and charity organization established to support and assist the National Health sector through organized practical health assistance programme. It is basically aimed at bringing free medical and highly subsidized health service to the afflicted and the less-privileged Nigerians.
Challenges in VPI
This is to change the mindset of the target beneficiaries of our intervention. We are trying to change their mind set, and I do respect peoples' mind, which is a gradual process. It's like trying to change your mind or mine. That is a challenge because changing their mind set is a difficult thing to do. Frankly, when there is an answer to something I don't see it as a challenge. Oil is not the only thing in this world. You have your brains; you have your destiny; which is not necessarily to work for Shell, Chevron or Agip. But they keep repeating, "We were looking for job... Shell didn't give us a job," But I believe they are brilliant and teachable people who could sew, brew local gins for export, and so on. Changing their mind set to accept these facts is really difficult. I believe with intensive talks, rallies and provision of some of the basic infrastructure on ground, there will be a change in the long run. I have also found out that they are ready to sheathe their sword when they see people who are genuinely working to change their living standards.
Actualizing set targets
In the North we met with the nurses, doctors, and the administrative officers on ground to join VPI by volunteering. It is usually the local people who choose the hospitals we use, the staff and so on. Once all that is cleared, treatment begins based on the specialization of the doctors. When we flagged off VPI operations in Otukpo, Benue State, we saw almost 2000 people in the two days that we were there and over 500 of them got free reading glasses. This simply tells the situation as it concerns the prevalence of eye problems among the people. The next most common illness is malaria.
In Enugu State earlier in January, VPI's treatment took place at the Good Shepherd Specialist Hospital, Christ Church Compound, Uwani. The complain/medical problem data showed that out of the 504 beneficiaries of the two-day free medical treatment held in collaboration with ASO Savings and Loans, 167 were treated of eye disorders alone. The breakdown of the gender ratio showed that 251 males and 253 females benefited from the intervention.
VPI functioned effectively with the local medical personnel who volunteered in the flagging off of the programme in Enugu. We had 34 doctors, 54 nurses, 15 pharmacists, nine computer personnel and 8 administrative staff. That kind of support helped in no small measure and we were glad that we could, in our own little way, be of help and give hope to our brothers and sisters.
We are offering service to humanity. If everyone must get adequate Medicare in this country, things must not be left to government alone. There is the need for private sector input such as we are trying to do. Besides, Nigeria has been good to me, I am very proud to be a Nigerian and it is why I am giving back to my country.
Contribution in Niger Delta
I’m from that region and I believe it is only in a peaceful environment that development could be achieved. From the visits so far to this region, I have come to realise that the aggrieved Niger Deltans need to be persuaded to change their posture and embrace peace to enable the area to attract the desired development and investors.
The issues, as we all know, is lack of development, lack of being fairly treated in the area of jobs, education among others. And they have been brought forward softly, gently. It has also resulted in the youths taking up arms. Now, they are dropping arms, which they have dropped for me - their mother, to give me time to be able to see if things can be done.
The solution is what I have been saying. First of all, it is forming a bond. I know people will laugh at this but that is the truth. Because, if you don't bond with someone you want to make peace with; you are not going to know that person and the way to set about making that peace. The basics, as in a generator that will provide light, drinking water, toilet, school for the children - so that they are not on canoe every morning, going to Port Harcourt to attend primary school. They need clinics - not a huge primary health centre as it is. Somewhere they can walk into and get their blood pressure checked, have anti-tetanus treatments, ante natal care and set up cottage industries etc. These basics have to be on ground before we talk of the bigger things that are expected, of course like roads, huge buildings, bridges and other facilities.
I think the most important thing is an acknowledgment of their complaints because, if you have a child that comes to you to say, this person stepped on my toe, 50 per cent of your placation should be mild. But if you say, "Stop lying," then you can't solve anything. Meanwhile, we are going to come and visit you to actually see the state of things. I tell you, the visit really would be wonderful. My husband, at present, is a father. It is just bureaucracy that will prevent him from going in but he wants to. But, because he's very busy. I believe it's this humane way of placating them that will bring success into anything. I think the summit that's being planned now is a good idea. I believe that it will work.
My experience with them was wonderful and they were very warmly. They gave me their best water to bath with. We are all Nigerians; we don't refuse hospitality. But I know they were trying to do their best for us. They bought new a mattress for me to sleep on. They just couldn't do enough to showcase themselves. I was just too moved. One pair of sandals that I have been wearing for months was in bad shape, but the shoemaker immediately fixed it for me. And I was able to see the type of shoes he was making.
So, I thought we could have a shoe factory as well because they have land where we can do that. The way he prepared it was perfect; you won't see the thread. They were helping me in and out of the boat. There is a stretch of land along the beach. It is a very beautiful place where they used to have their Christmas parties. With my son, Tunde Mark, we are going to do a peace concert on the beach with Tu Face and my brother, who is also a musician along with other musicians.
