Ebonyi State government, Monday, bailed out an eighteen weeks baby whose mother couldn’t go home following the husband’s inability to pay the hospital bill.
The couple, Mr and Mrs Sunday Igboke from Oriuzor in Ezza North Local government area of Ebonyi State, were give the sum of Five hundred Thousand Naira by Governor David Umahi to settle their hospital bills and take care of their newly born baby.
Mrs Joyce Igboke was said to have delivered through a cesarean section at the Mother and Child care Primary health Centre, Abakaliki for over two weeks, but was held back in the facility for failure to pay in full, bills accruing from her medical treatments.
She was charged the sum of N130,000, out of which her husband had paid N80, 000.
fortunately for the couple, on Sunday night a team of State Executive Council members led by the Principal Secretary to the Governor, Chief Emmanuel Obasi, who went on inspection tour of public utilities and facilities around Abakaliki, the State capital, discovered her.
The team brought the woman’s plight to the attention of the Governor who instantly directed that N500, 000 be given to the family.
Umahi also directed that Mrs Igboke be given automatic employment at her local government Council headquarters to enable her earn regular salary for her family’s continued upkeep.
Delivering the cash to the beneficiaries at the hospital ward, the Principal Secretary, Emmanuel Obasi, accompanied by the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Chinwe Okah, and a group of Civil Society Organizations who joined the train, explained that the Governor has been in the habit of rescuing people in difficulties irrespective of their nativity. He emphasized that Mr and Mrs Igboke were one out of countless persons the governor had given succour.
Obasi added: “You should know that our Governor is a kind man.
” Incidentally, you are not the first or even the hundredth person he has shown this kind of love.
“The Governor didn’t know you nor your husband.
” But because you are a citizen of Ebonyi State, he has extended this love to your family, and you only owe him your prayers, solidarity and support.
“He has directed us to come and deliver the message; we are only messengers.”
Mr Igboke appreciated the Governor for the gesture, praying that God would continue to lift him and members of his team in all their endeavors and aspirations.
He narrated how he was nearly knocked down by a moving vehicle while thinking about how to secure the release of her wife and child from the hospital, adding that he has no assistance, except his well aged mother.
“I married this my wife in the year 2015.
” Since then, those who are supposed to help us abandoned us.
“Her first issue was through caesarean section, and this time, same problem has confronted us.
” I did not have a pin in the form of money in the house before now.
“I have been running around to secure money to no avail, and only an old woman, my aged mother gave me N1,000 to enable us feed.
“God has used the Governor to answer our prayers, and I pray that God will grant him and his team their heart desires.
“Even the Presidency he seeks, may it reach him”, Igboke prayed.
In an interview, the health officer in charge of the Centre, Mrs Elizabeth Odoh, narrated how the Governor had resettled indigent parents of a triplet delivered in the Centre.
Odoh however, decried the lack of adequate health workers in the centre as one of their greatest challenges, and appealed to the government to urgently address the matter.
” We don’t have enough qualified nurses.
“So, if it is possible for us to have more nurses; registered nurses and midwifes, we will do better, he noted.”
One of the CSO members in the train, Barr.Mrs Nkem Chukwu, while praising the Governor’s action, called on privileged members of the society to emulate the Governor in assisting the indigents and less privileged ones around them, adding that such was the key mission of CSOs.