Foundation, Resident Doctors offer free medical services to 10, 000 indigents

No fewer than 10, 000 indigent residents in Enugu State were on Tuesday offered free medical care by the Paul Basil Iloegbouba Foundation (PBIF) to improve their health.

The foundation carried out the exercise in collaboration with the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), and the Teaching Hospital in Enugu.

The event titled “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 unable to access healthcare services.

According to him, a lot of 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 the hospital; we try to provide for them through free medical treatment,” he said.

Iloegbouba said there were different medical personnel that took care of malaria/typhoid, minor surgery, therapists, eye checks, 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 has been providing free medical treatment since 2014, IIoegbouba said they were expecting 10,000 people 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, Enugu,Ebonyi, Abia, and some other states.

“Today we are doing something we have not done before, and today will be the 15th medical outreach we have 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 this extent, and as an engineer,.

I developed my passion for the work some years ago when I saw some people who could not afford medical treatment.

“Life is not about how much cash, cars, or houses we have, but the lives we are able to save, and it makes sense when we touch people’s lives,” Iloegbouba said.

Dr. Chukwunoso Ofonere, President of the Association of Residents Doctors at ESUT Teaching Hospital, said the association partnered with PBIF to help the people of Enugu State, especially the indigent, access healthcare.

Ofonere, who is a senior registrar in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at 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 to partner with the foundation, we decided to do that for the benefit of our people.

“We have different types of doctors here; we have ophthalmologists, psychiatrists, paediatricians, obstetricians and gynaecologists, dental surgeons, general surgeons, and many others because it is a medical and surgical outreach.

“But we are not doing any surgery here; what we do is 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 paramedics, nurses, physiotherapists, dental therapists, 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 to see 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 with 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.

Another beneficiary, Mrs. Olaedo Okafor, described the outreach as ‘great and wonderful’.

"They are just attending to everybody, even the children. I am impressed by how they address issues here.

“I will continue to pray for this foundation,” she added.