Mrs. Jemilat Olufunmilayo Banire at a tender age of ten (10), had become aware of her rhesus status and its significance. As she grew up, her quest for knowledge heightened, which further exposed her to information on prevention and treatment prophylaxis.
At different times, she has had several encounters with women who had problems of availability and affordability of the Rhogam injection or had no knowledge of their rhesus status and its implication, to the extent that her nanny also suffered stigmatization due to repeated miscarriages which led to her broken home. These encounters opened her eyes to identify a huge gap of information and need to help indigent rhesus negative women in Nigeria. Her first intuition as a concerned person was to visit the general hospital, Ikeja, Lagos to notify them that she will be providing the Free Rhogam injection to women when the need arises. However, as a passionate woman, she felt the need to do more in the area of awareness. She particularly wanted to afford the younger ones the similar opportunity of early knowledge of their rhesus status.
Therefore, on May 12, 2007, Mrs. Jemilat Olufunmilayo Banire as part of her 40th Birthday Celebration with a visit to Ayinke House, LASUTH, went to sensitize and distributed gifts to New mothers including donation of Anti D immune globulin injections to rhesus negative mothers.
She then invited some professionals and other friends who are inclined towards selfless and humanitarian efforts to form the Board of Trustees. The organization was then duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in April, 2009. It was launched officially for full operations on Thursday, 19th November, 2009 in Lagos, Nigeria.
Rhesus Solution Initiative is a registered Non – Governmental, Non – political, Not – for – profit organization with the responsibility to sensitize the society about their blood group and Rhesus status particularly teenagers and pregnant women in order to prevent problems associated with rhesus disease or “Hemolytic Disease” i.e Jaundice, Anemia, dyspnea or difficulty in breathing, mental retardation or even neonatal death. We promote access to qualitative maternity care through our advocacy programmes.
We play complementary roles to our primary health institutions as a significant effort to ultimately reduce perinatal mortality and maternal morbidity arising from rhesus disease as our own contributory effort towards attaining Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages