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From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Reprieve recently came the way of many patients in hospitals across Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State who were treated and discharged but detained over inability to pay their bills.
•Ajah getting details about patients in the ward
Several of them would have spent Christmas in hospital but, following the intervention of the chairman of the local government area, Ajah Chinonso, popularly known as Consider, who cleared their bills, they are now in the comfort of their homes.
Ajah, out of compassion, declared monthly visitation to hospitals in the local government area to assist indigent patients by picking their medical bills. Daily Sun gathered that he visited hospitals in the three communities of Uburu, Okposi and Ugwulangwu.
During the visit, he saw that many patients needed assistance and not just the indigent ones. He then picked their medical bills running into millions of naira.
Some of the patients owed between N134,000 and N400,000. After clearing the bills, those who had paid some amounts of what they owed had their money refunded by the council boss.
At David Umahi Federal University Teaching Hospital (DUFUTH), Uburu, which the chairman first visited, he interacted with the management of the hospital before going to see the patients on their hospital beds to get details of their bills.
Deputy chairman, Medical Advisory Committee (CMAC) of DUFUTH, Dr. Saviour Obilo, told Ajah that there was a patient abandoned by her husband and relations in the hospital, thinking she would die because of her pathetic condition and lack of money to give her adequate medical attention. He urged him to come to her rescue.
“There is a patient that the relations abandoned. The husband left for one week and nothing was provided for her. They thought she would die but I am telling you that she is doing well now with our intervention of no fund in treating her.
“The husband thought she would die over the weekend. She had an accident and was taken to somewhere. They made the limbs and everything useless and the limbs were decaying.
“It is our desire that the patient will live and she shall survive, that is our own. We need to manage and continue to manage. If the relations come, if they don’t come, we will continue treating her, that is service to humanity. But we want to thank you for taking this bold step because it will go a long way in relieving a lot of burden.
“Last three months, we discharged a patient that was owing us over N800,000. We said, Go; you have stayed here for five months after discharge. So, we allowed that patient to go home,” he stated.
Responding, Ajah said he actually had indigent patients in mind as he came to the facility but was shocked to see that many patients could not pay their medical bills.
He said: “I didn’t even know that this would be this big. My mission of here was to offset the hospital bills of some indigent patients. On getting here, I discovered that a lot of patients needed assistance.
“I said, since it is charity work that I came to do, let me just offset bills of every patient in this hospital. So, we are going to pay the bills of all the patients. By the special grace of God, we will be coming every month to offset patients’ bills and I am kicking it off with this visit.”
Ajah, who spoke to newsmen after visiting the hospital, explained some of the things he has done in the local government area to alleviate the sufferings of the people.
He said: “We will be visiting hospitals every month to make sure that we take care of those that cannot pay their hospital bills.
“By next month, we kick off construction of 16 units of two and three-bedroom bungalows for widows across Ohaozara LGA, which we will build and furnish with solar lights. Already, we have over 300 widows we are paying stipends every month and I am grateful to God for what we have been able to do.”
He noted that he has commenced construction of 150 boreholes across the local government area to ensure availability of water.
Ajah said he decided to construct the boreholes not because there was water scarcity in the local government area but to ensure that his name is written in the water sector in the area. He revealed that while some of the boreholes would be powered by solar, others would be manual.
“The borehole project we are constructing is based on the People’s Charter of Needs manifesto of our dear governor and I want to follow in his footsteps because he has done a lot.
“From the few months he has been in office, he has done a lot for the state and, without him, we would not be able to do all these things that we are doing.”
One of the beneficiaries, Chioma Michael Amaka, a tailor whose newborn baby had been in the hospital for one month, commended Ajah for coming to her rescue.
“My baby is one month old; he has been in the hospital since he was born. He was taken to this hospital for surgery and we were billed N134,000 for his treatment. I want to thank our chairman for his kind gesture. Without him, we would have still been in the hospital,” she said.
