IT consortium donates GHC10,000 to Korle-Bu Cardiothoracic Center

IT consortium, a financial services technology solutions provider, has donated an amount of GHC10,000 to the Cardiothoracic center of the Korle-Bu Teaching hospital.

The money donated is in connection with the newly launched NUNA project which aims at lessening the burden of parents whose wards have been admitted at the center for heart surgeries.

Upon visitation and interaction with some patients at the center, Chief Business Development Officer of IT Consortium, Joojo Esua-Mensah, noted that footing bills of their wards remain a major challenge for parents.

He added that the situation gets appalling when parents lose their wards and loved ones because they couldn't afford the surgery charge.

It is in this light that IT Consortium saw it as a need to partner MTN Ghana and Consolidated Bank of Ghana to officially launch the NUNA project which seeks to give room for ordinary Ghanaians to donate to help people in this situation.

The NUNA platform is expected to bring value to the society since it would, in turn, save lives of Ghanaians living with heart-related diseases and would have to undergo surgery.

During the launch, Director of National Cardiothoracic Center, Korle-Bu, Dr. Lawrence Agyemang Sereboe revealed that 1 out of 100 children born have a hole in heart condition and are compelled to undergo surgery.

He added that because the National Health Insurance card doesn’t cover the surgery, it sometimes leaves parents emotionally sick when they are informed to pay about $6,000 to get the surgery done for their wards.

“Presently, there is hardly any insurance system that supports people to have heart surgery. The only insurance company that really participate in this is the private insurance companies and even then, it is really a big problem for them. The National Health Insurance system does not apply as to when it comes to having heart surgery”, he said.

Attesting to the fact that the cost of heart surgery is expensive, he entreated Ghanaians to support the NUNA project by subscribing onto it and also encouraged them to donate any amount of money to the scheme.

He added that “What we want is for Ghanaians to donate the smallest amount as much you can even if it is GHC1…There are some people who want to donate but they don’t know how to. This NUNA project brings the donation to your doorstep. From your phone, your mobile money account, you can give a standing order that every week or month, just take away GHC5 to help these people”