No fewer than 10, 000 indigent residents in Enugu State has received free medical care through Paul Basil Iloegbouba Foundation (PBIF) to improve their heath conditions.
The foundation carried out the exercise in collaboration with the Association of Resident Doctors, (ARD), Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), Teaching Hospital, Enugu.
The event entitled: “Enugu Mega Medical Outreach” was held at Okpara Square, Enugu.
The Founder of the foundation, Mr Paul Iloegbouba, said they were moved by the current hardship in the country that was making many poor people in Enugu not to access healthcare services.
According to him, a lot people in the state are going through pain while some people cannot afford their hospital bills.
“We try to see how we can help the poor masses who cannot afford to go to hospital; we try to provide for them through medical means of free medical treatment,” he said.
Iloegbouba said there were different medical personnel that took care of malaria/typhoid, minor surgery, therapist, eye check/free glasses and many other ailments.
“Basically, we are handling almost all general treatment when it comes to medical issues except deep surgical,” he said.
While explaining that the foundation started its free medical treatment since 2014, IIoegbouba, said they were expecting 10,000 persons to benefit from the outreach.
“We have been doing this in our own capacity, we have moved from local government to local government. We have been in Udi in Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia and some other states.
“Today we are doing something we have not done before, and today will make it 15th medical outreach we had done since inception which is running into millions of Naira.
“We have a lot of individuals supporting what we are doing and that is why we have gone to these extent and as an Engineer,.
I drive my passion for the work some years back when I saw some people that cannot afford medical treatment.
“Life is not about how much cash, cars or houses but the lives we are able to save and it makes sense when we touch people’s life,” Iloegbouba said.
Dr Chukwunoso Ofonere, President of the Association of Residents Doctors, ESUT Teaching Hospital, said the association partnered PBIF to help the people of Enugu State especially the indigent ones to access healthcare.
Ofonere, who is a Senior Registrar in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, ESUT Teaching Hospital, described the outreach as specialist care for Enugu people.
He said that as a doctor, their main aim was to assist people with quality and affordable healthcare.
“So, when we found this opportunity of partnering with the foundation, we decided to do that for the benefit of our people.
“We have different type of doctors here, we have ophthalmologist, psychiatrist, paediatricians, Obstetricians and Gynaecologist, Dental Surgeon, General Surgeon and many others because it is a medical and surgical outreach.
“But we are not doing any surgery here, what we do is to sort out patients that are due for surgery and plan them for surgery.
“We have an ambulance in case of any emergency or anyone that requires immediate surgery and attention.
“We also have more than 50 medical doctors even though, we targeted 100 doctors, 50 para medicals, nurses, physiotherapist, dental therapist, dieticians and laboratory scientists,” he explained.
The wife of Iloegbouba and Co founder of PBIF, Mrs Favour, explained that the exercise was to impact and save lives, adding that,
it had been their passion seeing people celebrating Christmas in good health.
“This is what pushed us into putting it now instead of January or any other month and in a rough estimate,
we have spent more than N50 million since inception, treating people free of charge,” she said.
A 56-year-old beneficiary, Mrs Elizabeth Ugwu, who said she was treated of pain, expressed happiness that the foundation attended to her.
“I was given High Blood Pressure and pain relief tablets and If our children who are rich are doing like this, Nigeria will be better,” she said.
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Another beneficiary, Mrs Olaedo Okafor, described the outreach as ‘great and wonderful’.
“They are just attending to everybody, even the children too. I am impressed on how they address issues here.
“I will continue to pray for this foundation,” she added.
