From David Onwuchekwa, Nnewi

Fourteen patients spread across the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi, Immaculate Heart Hospital and Maternity and Nnewi Diocesan Hospital (Akwudo) have thanked their stars as a philanthropist and founder of Reality Forum, an All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) support group, visited the three hospitals in one day to settle their bills.

Comrade Uzo Nwosu had visited the hospitals in company with other members of the group to settle the hospital bills put at thousands of naira of indigent patients.

Nwosu while writing off the bills in consultations with the hospitals managements said he was moved out of pity to come to the rescue of the indigent patients who had been discharged from the hospitals, but could not foot their bills because of economic hardship and other circumstances.

He said the organisation had been doing the philanthropic gestures in the past at various levels unannounced, but decided this time around to attract the attention of the well-to-do in society to always remember the less privileged in their budgets.

He said that it would be a reasonable idea for those who were blessed to look around their environment and share with those suffering in various dimensions, saying, “that is the best way to give back to society what the society has given to you.”

Nwosu explained that other reasons for the philanthropic gestures were to appreciate the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano in his effort to ensure that the welfare of Anambra people was protected, as well as to support him in his second term bid.

He was of the view that since the governor, by his own assessment, had recorded remarkable achievements in the areas of security, agriculture, prompt payment of workers salaries and pensions, infrastructural development, he should be allowed to complete an eight-year tenure to enable him accomplish other programmes in his manifesto.

By extension, Nwosu said his Reality Forum had concluded arrangements to establish the biggest cassava farm East of the Niger, which would engage many acres of land in cassava plantation.

He told journalists that the farm would produce cassava in commercial quantities to be processed in Anambra for exportation.

Related News

The Chief Medical Director of NAUTH, Prof. Anthony Igwegbe, in whose hospital six indigent patients benefited, commended Nwosu for coming to the rescue of the indigent patients, who he said had remained a burden to the health institution.

He explained that the hospital had been grappling with the challenges of discharged patients who could not pay their bills, but continued to occupy limited accommodations that would have been provided for new patients.

The CMD, therefore, appealed to other philanthropists to emulate the kind gesture of the organization.

In the same vein, the Matron of the Immaculate Heart Hospital and Maternity, Sister Mary Benjamin Elochukwu, was excited at the surprise visit to give financially help to six indigent patients in the hospital.

“It is God who has brought you here. We suffer so much. And some of the cases brought to us here are those already in a bad situation. We even have a patient here in the hospital who had major operation and because the relatives do not have money, they paid the bill in N2, 000 instalments. Some of the patients are discharged but cannot go home because of their inability to pay their bills,” she lamented.

Apart from the issue of hospital bills, the Sister drew the attention of her visitors to dilapidated infrastructure in the hospital, especially the buildings.

At the Diocesan (Anglican) Hospital where two of the indigent patients were beneficiaries, the matron, Irene Ahaba, described the gesture as a humanitarian service worthy of emulation.

She said she believed that other well-meaning Nigerians would learn from the forum.

The beneficiaries were basically drawn from the female surgical and maternity wards of those hospitals.