Heritage Advancement Forum pledges access to healthcare services to indigent Nigerians

The Heritage Advancement Forum (HAF) a non-governmental organisation, says it will continually ensure that masses and indigent Nigerians have access to healthcare services at no cost.

This, it said, remained its commitment to humanitarian services.

Mr Anegbode Odion, President of HAF, made this known at the organisation’s 2023 End of the Year Party on Monday in Lagos.

The programme featured an award giving session where some outstanding members of HAF were given awards for their commitment to extraordinary support and selfless service to humanity.

Odion said the organisation was formed basically to help the vulnerable and less privileged citizens in the society.

He explained that the group achieved its objective by organising medical outreach for communities across the country, giving scholarship to students and rendering financial assistance to the vulnerable, mostly women and children.

He added that others were visiting government hospitals from time to time to offset medical bills of indigent patients detained in the hospital because of their inability to pay and general charity works.

According to him, the medical outreach has been on for over six years now, since the inception of the organisation in 2018.

Odion explained that the outreach was one of the ways the organisation gave back to the society, by making healthcare services accessible to people who cannot afford hospital bills.

“HAF is a group of some philanthropists who are committed to selfless humanitarian aids of caring for the vulnerable in the society.

“The government cannot do it alone to provide for everyone; which was why the organisation was formed, so that while government is doing the ones it can do, we at the organisation and individual levels can assist.

“In addition to the series of outreach services and other charity works of HAF, it has started offering scholarships to less privileged children in primary and secondary schools.

“A total of 10 students had been enrolled into schools for the first category of the scholarship for 2023 and we plan to expand the  scope of the scholarship programme by 2024,” he said.

Speaking, Mr Kevin Ebhojie, Chairman, Board of Trustees, HAF, called on good-spirited Nigerians and philanthropists to intensify efforts toward helping the vulnerable in the society.

Ebhojie said that they could identify with organisations like HAF or other charity organisations through which they could reach out to the less privileged.

He decried that a lot people fell into the category of the vulnerable and are in need of assistance of any kind.

Ebhojie explained that the organisation plans to increase the frequency of the outreach so that more communities across the country would be covered with increased number of beneficiaries.

“The outreach is carried out twice in a year but we plan to increase the frequency of the outreach come 2024 so that more people can benefit from the programme.

“Our goal is to ensure that the vulnerable are not left behind but are cared for,” Ebhojie said.

Contributing, Mr Emmanuel Okoje, a Founding Member of HAF, expressed excitement that the Organisation had impacted positively on the lives of many people.

Okoje said that a good number of communities across the country had benefited from the series of medical outreaches organised by HAF.

Thanking members of the organisation for their commitment, Okoje called for their continuous support to the executives of the association to enable them actualise the set objectives.

He said: “What a few people sat in my living room to talk about is becoming something that is not only touching people’s lives but touching millions of people’s lives because a lot of communities across the country have benefited from the outreach”.

Photo caption:

Some members of Heritage Advancement Forum (HAF) during its 2023 End of Year Party in Lagos