The Rotary Club of Lagos, District 9110 has donated over 70 mobility aids to the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos.
The mobility aids items presented to the hospital include 10-wheel chairs, 30 armpit crutches, 30 elbow crutches, 20 walking sticks, five walkers, three speciality walkers and 20 orthotics, among others.
The presentation event was held at the Igbobi Rotary Hall at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, recently, with the attendance of the president, Rotary Club, Lagos, Rotarian Joseph Akhigbe; chief medical director, National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dr. Mustapha Alimi and Rotary Foundation director, mobility aids head committee, Rotarian UK Eke.
In his opening remark, Akhigbe, who disclosed this, revealed that the items were donated by the Rotary clubs in partnership with the United States (Crutches for Africa), with the sole aim of helping the needy in the society at no cost, even as he disclosed that the donation is a humanitarian service to directly support Nigerians that need them the most.
He said, “What we are doing is impacting the lives of the less privileged, and the needy in the society. We have no doubt that these items will help to ease their burden.’’
With a global membership of 1.4 million, the Rotary club also focuses on its core values which include, supporting the environment, peacebuilding, conflict prevention, community economy development, basic education and literacy, maternal, and child health, water sanitation, disease prevention, and treatment.
Akhigbe, who is the 62nd president of the club disclosed that there are lots of activities in the pipeline, adding that the club has plans of donating mobility aids to other organisations within Lagos and Ogun states.
“For instance, Rotary Club has commenced the building of a primary school in the Ilara community which would be completed and fully furnished for use as part of the Club’s intervention in the education sector. In addition, we recently provided 10 pipe-borne water for communities in Ogun state and distributed incubators to hospitals courtesy Rotary Club’s German partners,” the president said.
Director of Rotary Foundation, Rotarian UK Eke said, in total, we planned to distribute 2,188 mobility aids with 155 wheelchairs, 696 crutches, 669 walkers and 327 crutches, 167 specialty walkers, walking sticks and orthopaedic boots to the sickle cell homes, schools for the blind, Spinal Cord organization, and faith-based organizations.
On his part, the chief medical director, National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dr. Mustapha Alimi expressed his delight over the intervention by the Rotary Club. “We have started distributing the items to quite a number of our patients. This is indeed a welcome development as it will help in the process of our patients’ rehabilitation,” he said.
