Glo, Kanu Nwankwo partner on heart care
Globacom Limited and Kanu Heart Foundation (KHF) have kicked off a partnership on the generation of funds for treatment of people suffering from heart diseases through the deployment of SMS on the platform of Nigerians’ preferred network.
The two organizations said at a press conference that the partnership hopes to raise funds for heart surgeries. In raising the funds, the telecoms firm has developed a special coded number “33640” for SMS by those who wish to support the effort. Any Glomobile subscriber can send SMS (save, any character even a blank message) to 33640 and an immediate response from Glo follows. A sum of N50 will be deducted instantly from the subscriber’s air-time.
In his remarks at the heart-touching ceremony, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Globacom, Mr. Mohammed Jameel, said the second national carrier was a compassionate and truly Nigerian corporate citizen, stressing that this was responsible for the company’s collaboration with the Foundation in addressing heart-related challenges.
“Let me say that we are proud and delighted to be associated with this life-saving Foundation in its compassionate goal. We commend our patriot and Super Eagles’ captain, Kanu Nwankwo, who is also the chairman of the Foundation, for initiating this laudable project and ask other corporate institutions and philanthropic Nigerians to support him in realizing this vision,” Jameel said.
The Foundation’s coordinator and trustee, Deacon Abia Onyebuchi, said at the moment that there were an outstanding 1000 cases waiting for funds to undertake heart surgery. He said there was a critical case of a child who would die in the next four weeks if there was no immediate intervention for treatment.
According to the Foundation, each open heart surgery requires at least N2 million to be carried out. “It even costs far more if a transplant is involved and usually it is difficult to even get a free heart. In some congenital or acquired cases, as the Foundation has experienced, some victims’ hearts irreparably damaged,” Deacon Onyebuchi stated.
Nwankwo in his remarks expressed confidence in the capacity of Glo to drive this project and thanked Globacom Chairman, Dr. Mike Adenuga, Jr. for his immense contributions to sports development particularly and humanity generally. “He is a father to us footballers,” he said, adding that he had from outset been a part of the Glo family.
In 2002 when the foundation did its pilot edition in Enugu by flying in surgeons from abroad, 10 of the patients survived and three unfortunately could not make it. Between then and now, the Foundation has sponsored 300 open heart surgeries of sufferers from all parts of the country. The beneficiaries were flown either to India, Israel, UK or USA for treatment.
Meanwhile, the association is shopping for outlets where the cost will be cheaper so that many more patients could be accommodated. The first surgery carried out by the Foundation cost N6 million and the lucky beneficiary was Baby Enitan Ebisola, who is now grown up and was present at the kick-off ceremony of the Glo-KHF joint venture.
The Foundation has also concluded plans to build a cardio-vascular centre that will cost N450 million on completion once funds are sourced. The centre is billed to provide free heart tests for visitors.
The two organizations said at a press conference that the partnership hopes to raise funds for heart surgeries. In raising the funds, the telecoms firm has developed a special coded number “33640” for SMS by those who wish to support the effort. Any Glomobile subscriber can send SMS (save, any character even a blank message) to 33640 and an immediate response from Glo follows. A sum of N50 will be deducted instantly from the subscriber’s air-time.
In his remarks at the heart-touching ceremony, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Globacom, Mr. Mohammed Jameel, said the second national carrier was a compassionate and truly Nigerian corporate citizen, stressing that this was responsible for the company’s collaboration with the Foundation in addressing heart-related challenges.
“Let me say that we are proud and delighted to be associated with this life-saving Foundation in its compassionate goal. We commend our patriot and Super Eagles’ captain, Kanu Nwankwo, who is also the chairman of the Foundation, for initiating this laudable project and ask other corporate institutions and philanthropic Nigerians to support him in realizing this vision,” Jameel said.
The Foundation’s coordinator and trustee, Deacon Abia Onyebuchi, said at the moment that there were an outstanding 1000 cases waiting for funds to undertake heart surgery. He said there was a critical case of a child who would die in the next four weeks if there was no immediate intervention for treatment.
According to the Foundation, each open heart surgery requires at least N2 million to be carried out. “It even costs far more if a transplant is involved and usually it is difficult to even get a free heart. In some congenital or acquired cases, as the Foundation has experienced, some victims’ hearts irreparably damaged,” Deacon Onyebuchi stated.
Nwankwo in his remarks expressed confidence in the capacity of Glo to drive this project and thanked Globacom Chairman, Dr. Mike Adenuga, Jr. for his immense contributions to sports development particularly and humanity generally. “He is a father to us footballers,” he said, adding that he had from outset been a part of the Glo family.
In 2002 when the foundation did its pilot edition in Enugu by flying in surgeons from abroad, 10 of the patients survived and three unfortunately could not make it. Between then and now, the Foundation has sponsored 300 open heart surgeries of sufferers from all parts of the country. The beneficiaries were flown either to India, Israel, UK or USA for treatment.
Meanwhile, the association is shopping for outlets where the cost will be cheaper so that many more patients could be accommodated. The first surgery carried out by the Foundation cost N6 million and the lucky beneficiary was Baby Enitan Ebisola, who is now grown up and was present at the kick-off ceremony of the Glo-KHF joint venture.
The Foundation has also concluded plans to build a cardio-vascular centre that will cost N450 million on completion once funds are sourced. The centre is billed to provide free heart tests for visitors.
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