From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
About 200 patients from Awgbu community in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State have received free medical services from a group known as Awgbu Growth and Development Initiatives (AGDI).
The group, comprising of Awgbu indigenes committed to the development of Awgbu Town, organized the medical outreach for Awgbu indigenes and residents at the Awgbu Referral Hospital, Akwuabor, offering free medical care to mostly elderly persons.
AGDI also donated a new ambulance to Awgbu Referral Hospital to aid its emergency response in the area.
The beneficiaries, who were checked for blood pressure, sugar level and malaria parasite, among other medical conditions, were attended to by a team of doctors and nurses. Drugs were also provided.
The coordinator of the group, Mr. Emeka Owoh, stated that the medical outreach, which was the first of its kind by the group, was necessitated by the need to provide succor to those in the rural communities.
He stated that the rising cost of living is heavily affecting the rural dwellers, hampering their access to appropriate healthcare services.
Owoh further said that its contribution at the moment to the community was just a tip of the iceberg of what they would offer to Awgbu town in few months to come.
He also used the opportunity to call on well-meaning members of Awgbu community, who are passionate about development to join the group to move the community forward.
He said: “What we did today is to contribute our quota to the well-being of the people, especially the elderly by providing them with free health services. We know there is hardship in the country and many household could not eat two or three square male a day let alone going to hospital to check their health status and buy drugs.”
In his remarks, a community leader and a member of the group, Mr. Okey Ezibe, said that Awgbu will develop exponentially if more individuals continue to contribute to the development of the town in their little way.
He called on Awgbu sons and daughters to rise up to the challenge and leave Awgbu better than they met it so that the next generation would be proud of their past.
He used the opportunity to intimate the public about the plan to begin the next phase of the project, which is the construction of a residency for the doctors and nurses at the hospital, saying that the plan was to upgrade the hospital to a general hospital in few months time.
The group was also one of the largest donor in the recently commissioned multimillion naira hospital and diagnostic laboratory built at the Akwuabor Referral Hospital by the Lagos Branch of the APU.
Some of the patients, Mr. Donatus Udemma, Mrs Agnes Eze and Susan Obi, commended the group for their kind gesture, saying that no group has provided such medical services to aged people in the community.
They, however, called on other good spirited individuals to emulate the kind gesture and invest in healthcare of the people of the community, as health is wealth.