As part of activities marking its first anniversary, travel and tour company, Alphaa.Africa, has carried out a health outreach and charity drive at the Nyanya General Hospital in Abuja.
The outreach, which focused on community support, health awareness and charitable giving, saw the team of the organization visiting patients and members of the community at the hospital, with special attention on the paediatric ward.
The team donated beverages, toiletries and cash to offset hospital bills of indigent patients, particularly children whose parents could not afford their medical bills.
Speaking during the outreach, the Managing Director of Alphaa.Africa, Mr. Christian Onyeka Ugu, said the initiative was part of the company’s corporate social responsibility to give back to society.
“We are from Alphaa.Africa, a travel and tour company. We are here with our team to support the patients in this hospital as part of our corporate social responsibility. It is to support the people, the patients in these hospitals and to encourage them that this is just a phase, they can still go on to become whatever they want to become after this period,” he said.
Mr. Ugu disclosed that the company spent between seven to eight million naira on the outreach.
He explained that although this is the first outreach being directly organized by the company to mark its anniversary, Alphaa.Africa has in the past supported NGOs that carry out similar health interventions in rural communities.
“We chose paediatrics because children are quite important to us and they don’t deserve any form of hardship. We don’t want our kids to pass through any form of difficulties because their parents couldn’t afford their medical bills,” he noted.
The MD stated that the gesture was driven by the belief that health is wealth, adding that a healthy population makes for a better society.
“It is personal to give helping hands, but it is also heroic to assist people that do not have the capacity or the ability to pay you back other than to say thank you,” he added.
Mr. Ugu used the opportunity to call on the Federal Government to address the ongoing brain drain in the health sector by improving the welfare of medical personnel.
“My advice to the government as regards the brain drain happening in the country currently is to support the medical personnel, give them better incentives, increase their pay and support them in different ways. We’ve been hearing their hazard allowance is laughable compared to other countries of the world,” he said.
He called on well-meaning Nigerians and corporate organizations to support the government in eradicating poverty and addressing challenges in the health sector.
