Sam Philip
A philanthropist, Otunba Yomi Akingbade has provided free medical services and palliatives to over 5000 underprivileged persons to cushion the effects of the economic hardship in Akure, Ondo State capital.
Organising the intervention programme at Akure Town Hall on Thursday, the United States of America-based philanthropist distributed food items and clothes to large number of aged persons, youths and other underprivileged persons free.
He provided the palliatives and free medical services through his organization, Otunba Yomi Akingbade Foundation (OYAF) to assist those who could not afford medical treatment anf consumables.
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The beneficiaries were tested for blood pressure and blood sugar and were given medical consumables free.
Besides, they were sensitised on chronic and preventive diseases, healthy eating and healthy living, dementia and memory loss awareness, hypertension, cholera and diabetes.
While addressing journalists during the programme, the organiser, Otunba Yomi Akingbade said the main purpose of the outreach was to touch lives by providing basic health education for people to take control of their health and to offer free healthcare consultation services with free medicines to those who could not afford routine general medical check-ups or treatment.
Otunba Akingbade, who is the publisher of NigeriaTodayTimes, an online Newspaper, said: “I did this for my people because I grew up in this town and the community has helped me a lot in this environment and this is the best time for me to give back to my community.
“I have a call to reach out to the underprivileged around me, which is why we are holding this medical outreach for our people.
“We decided to bring healthcare services closer to the people at no cost at all because it is a known fact that access to medicare is a big challenge in Nigeria.
“A lot of people with one underlying ailment or the other are dying in silence because they cannot afford the hospital bills.
“We all know that health is wealth, and about 5000 people are benefitting from the free medical outreach.
“As a matter of fact, we need to improve on our health sector, we should all be able to have access to quality healthcare in this country.
“I pray that we should have a good governance so that our health sector can be improved upon. I have spent almost N50million and I didn’t do this for any political motive, I want to give back to my community and the underprivileged people and we will be doing it quarterly for us to be helping people medically and others.”