AFE BABALOLA EXPANDS HIS PHILANTHROPIC HORIZON WITH MULTIMILLION NAIRA FREE HEALTH SCHEME

It is no longer news that Aare Afe Babalola, a legal luminary and the founder/Chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), is an accomplished philanthropist but with over 50 years at the Bar, his philanthropic activities have not wane.

A visit to his ABUAD office always shows roll of visitors waiting to see him daily for one thing or the other and one thing is sure; whatever is the mission none of the visitors will go back empty handed without receiving from  Afe Babalola.  This is a daily routine and the old man derives immense joy in helping others.

Apart from this, it is a routine assignment for him to also help others to higher pedestal as long as you are ambitious and hard working because he hates indolence.

In furtherance of his much familiar gesture, Aare Afe Babalola, has again embarked on a two-week multi million naira free health services for Ekiti, and Nigerian residents.

The free health programme which took off on Monday 30th, 2017 at the premises of Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti and was targeted at pregnant women, children and the aged people within and outside the state, irrespective of their tribe.

Speaking with reporters as residents were receiving free treatment at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti venue of the free health programme, the Provost ABUAD College of Medicine and Health Services, Prof. Olurotimi Sanya, who disclosed that the programme had gulped well over N10 Million naira, explained that it was borne out of Babalola’s philanthropy to make life easier for the ordinary people. The free health scheme is meant to further spread the dragnet of his philathropicism to those captured as ‘the venerable group’, including children, pregnant women and the aged.

The don described Afe Babalola as a man who always derives joy in seeing that another person around him is happy. He said, “this free health scheme to Nigerians is another form of  empowerment, and a means  of imparting positively on the lives of people around him, since  staying well and in good health is another way of living happily”.

This latest empowerment came barely a month after Aare Afe in his usual manner  brought succour the way of 1,000 people in Ekiti State both indegenes and non indegenes who received a total sum of N16.5 million as economic empowerment. Many people at the venue of the empowerment in Ado Ekiti then described Afe Babalola as an unusual human being who gives not only when he has money but even when he has no money on him, adding that this has been in him since when he was young.

The free treatment and drugs given to beneficiaries was the first stage of the programme, adding that those with more critical cases would be referred to specialists for treatment at highly subsidised.

The programme is a brainchild of Aare Afe Babalola and it was in fulfilment of the ‘town and gown’ relationship between the university and the community. The Founder believes that there are many areas the university can have positive impact on the immediate environment.

The programme was a collaboration between ABUAD College of Medicine and Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti and it is free of charge. The patients are examined free and given drugs free. If we discover people who need surgical operations will be referred to specialists and in that case, it cannot be completely free but will be highly subsidized.

“It is targeting three groups-pregnant women, children and the aged people while those who don’t belong to these groups will equally be attended to. We will keep on attending to needy patients as they come because we don’t have any particular number in mind as we cannot limit the number of people coming to benefit. But we will attend to not less than 300 persons per day.”

The programme flagged off as early as 9:00 am on Monday attended to hundreds of people who trooped out en masse to benefit from the free health mission while Medical doctors and ABUAD medical students who are having their training at FTH, Ido Ekiti were mobilized for the exercise in which beneficiaries received treatment and received drugs free.

Many of the beneficiaries prayed for Babalola for the gesture which they said had saved them from dying from ailments like hypertension, diabetes, eye problems, malaria, among others, while some described this as timing saying “this gesture has really assisted and saved some of us who were although suffering in silence but afraid of visiting hospital for fear of lack of money to treat or take care of our ailments.”

ABUAD Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Ajisafe, who addressed the gathering urged the people of Ido and neighbouring communities to come out the more and benefit from free medical scheme, assuring that everybody that come would be attended to within the two weeks in respective of their tribe.

Ajisafe who represented Afe Babalola’s stated that the programme would boost the standard of living of a the populace, and urged beneficiaries to inform family members and neighbours to utilize the opportunity.

While speaking on the other developmental programmes of the University, Ajisafe hinted that ABUAD is breaking new grounds in the field of medicine with the construction of a world class teaching hospital at ABUAD to train medical personnel and provide qualitative healthcare delivery.

The free medical programme has received encomiums from beneficiaries who stormed the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido Ekiti Ekiti venue of the  programme.  Beneficiaries are from the state and outside Ekiti State.