6th December, 2010
The Kanu Nwankwo Heart Foundation (KHF), a charity organisation established by Nigerian International and English Premier League Football striker, Nwankwo Kanu, founded in 2000, to help underprivileged African children and young adults living with different heart ailments in Nigeria and other African countries, obtain cardiac surgical operations, is set to arrange treatment for some children and adults with heart problems.
At the screening of patients recently at the Eko Hospital, Ikeja Lagos, over 30 patients were tested and recommended for surgery. According to the coordinator of the foundation, Mr. Onyebuchi Abia, their treatment would be facilitated at the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery, Khartoum, Sudan.
Abia said the surgery would be carried out on the patients free-of-charge in partnership with an NGO Emergency, Italy, as both are in a partnership arrangement where 50 patients from the Kanu Heart Foundation will receive free open heart surgery every year in the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery, owned by Emergency.
Abia said they are also partnership with the management of Eko Hospital, and that is where all the tests are conducted. He commended the hospital, saying: “as a private entity, Eko Hospital has been very supportive as it has reduced drastically to 50 per cent the cost of testing, treatment and drugs for the patients while KHF pays the other 50 per cent. We are all working towards the same goal: to save lives.â€
He said children below the age of 14 would be treated free of charge, while their accommodation, feeding and air ticket would be provided by KHF, but patients above 14 will have to buy their own tickets, though they would also be treated free of charge and provided with feeding and accommodation.
Onyebuchi disclosed that the biggest challenge is finance as it costs about N3million to take care of one patient, and one way they have been tackling the heart-related problems is by organising heart summits in all the states of the federation. The aim is to discover patients and also bring doctors together to explain to people the causes and what they can do to avoid it. In this regard, we are very grateful to the Nigeria media for its support,” he added.
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