New Year: How Omisore helped indigent OAUTH patients

ONE cannot but laud the former deputy governor of Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore, for his yearly social intervention cause which started about two decades ago, because, ever since that time, the practice has never stopped.

This New Year, it was, again, observed. On the early morning of January 1, Omisore, who has also been chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriation, again, brought unspeakable joy to hundreds of patients at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Teaching Hospital (OAUTH), Ile-Ife, and the children and caregivers at the Covenant Orphanage and Welfare Centre in Moro village, Osun State.

Senator Omisore, who with his entourage first stormed the OAUTH, arrived the administrative block of the teaching hospital around 9:00 a.m. and was received by the top management executives and staff of the hospital, led by the Chief Medical Director (CMD), Professor Victor Adetiloye.

Receiving the visitor, the CMD, Professor Adetiloye, copiously thanked Senator Omisore for always choosing to spend his first day of every year with the patients of OAUTH by bringing smile to their faces.

“Today, we again welcome Senator Iyiola Omisore to our midst for his yearly philanthropic gesture, which has always been bringing smile to the faces of our patients here,” he said.

Adetiloye also enumerated several intervention projects that Omisore had been doing to advance the hospital’s infrastructures for the past two decades. These he said included water projects, road construction, construction of new wards in the hospital and clearing of patients’ bills.

He said: “Today, as usual, Senator Omisore has brought salvation to many of our patients by offsetting the N2.3 million bills of 17 patients who could not pay their medical bills after receiving treatment here.”

The CMD also disclosed that the intervention of Omisore and some other corporate organisations in the country, in the operations of the teaching hospital, had improved the standard of its output.

“Through his support and other corporate organisations, we have developed the hospital to an international standard. Our quality of service is equal to none in West Africa. We receive patients from across Nigeria.

“We have experts in all fields in medical practice; and we perform rare feats, because we operate at a global standard. Despite that, our services remain the cheapest; we charge at an affordable level, but even at that, many patients cannot still afford to pay,” he said.

He also used the medium to appeal to well-meaning Nigerians to emulate such gesture of Senator Omisore at giving back and creating values to their communities.

The CMD also led Omisore and his entourage on tour of each and every ward in the massive hospital where Omisore met, prayed and inspired the patients before settling the bills of 17 of them.

Omisore, however, disclosed that his presence was not only to settle the debt of the patient, but also to give the patients sense of belonging, so that they would know that they had not been forgotten.

“It is not only about settling their bills, but also that our presence here will make them feel that they are not forgotten and that is why I have made it a point of duty to always visit here every first day of the year,” he said.

Omisore, who admitted that he could not do it all, appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to also find a means of giving back to the less-privileged.

“I, however, appeal to good-spirited people in the society to assist other patients who are still in the hospital, because of lack of money to offset their medical bills and to also reach out to the needy in the society,” he said.

Many of the beneficiaries of the New Year largesse thanked the former deputy governor for his gesture, praying God to continue to grant him success in the year and beyond.

They also seized the opportunity to appeal to other well-to-do Nigerians to have compassion on the needy, particularly those who are going through health challenges, saying “it is not the wish of anybody, whether rich or poor, to fall ill or have an accident.”

As soon as he left the OAUTH, Omisore also sent relief materials to the Covenant Orphanage and Welfare Centre at Moro, another community within the Ile-Ife metropolis. According to the former lawmaker, he also did this to ameliorate the plights of the children without parents.