…Partners with association to ameliorate the sufferings of victims
Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo has once more demonstrated his commitment to bring hope to the hopeless and the downtrodden with his latest visit to the Association of People Living with Sickle Cell Disease in Agulu, Anambra State recently.
While receiving Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo at the counselling centre of the association, the founder of the Association of People Living with Sickle Cell Disease (APLSCD), Mrs. Aisha Edwards appreciated Engr. Onunkwo for gracing them with his physical presence in their midst.
She stated that too many of the victims do not go to hospital any longer because of the dejected nature they have found themselves in.
According to her, “the APLSCD home serves a multipurpose need, the need for counseling patients living with Sickle cell, sensitization on genotype and also serves as an assembly ground. We have built ourselves a sickle cell specialist clinic which was facilitated with Engr. Arthur Eze’s donation and has helped also in subsidizing medical facilities.”
She highlighted some challenges which the organization was currently having which include poverty, stigmatization and lack of blood donations to sustain victims.
“We have been shortchanged in our lives. The state government has not implemented the provisions made for us in the budget, subjecting us to a beggary state and untimely death. These problems explain the reasons our members die in large numbers. So we are soliciting assistance with food, beverages and funds”, she submitted.
In his remarks, Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo decried the rate at which things have degenerated, to the extent that human lives are being taken for granted. He expressed mixed feelings at the neglect of the people living with Sickle cell anaemia and the misery which they were being conditioned to live in.
“I have been crying in my mind because government has some statutory responsibilities that they don’t need to publicise or boast of whenever they are implementing such. Healthcare is one thing the government should never joke with and it pains me and every well-meaning Anambrarian that the system is not living up to our expectation. Anybody born with sickle cell should have a comprehensive health insurance from government because they are not sicklers by their own choosing, rather, nature made them that way,” Engr. Onunkwo stressed succinctly.
He called on the government to look into the plights of the suffering victims of sickle cell disease.
In his usual way of rekindling the hopes of the victims for a better life ahead, he showed demonstrable commitment to make life easier for the sicklers by offering to assist the association financially and otherwise. He donated a sum of money and tasked the management of the association to come up with a comprehensive package of areas in which the association would need the assistance of his foundation, the Johnbosco Onunkwo Foundation.
Visibly elated, Chief Nathaniel Abigbogu, on behalf of the people of Agulu, thanked Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo for his benevolence and humanitarian disposition which have endeared him to all and sundry and prayed God to bless his vision for Anambra State.
Delivering the vote of thanks, the proprietor of the association, Mrs. Aisha Edwards heartily thanked Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo once more for his goodwill and culture of charity, praying that other privileged members of the society may emulate his good examples.
“Believe me, the attention you have given us is priceless. We are grateful that you are here to listen to our poor voice and feel our pain. May God bless you abundantly,” she added.
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