How I was compelled to pay patients’ medical bill at Enugu Hospital -Obi

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By Alphonsus Nweze, Onitsha

Presidential candidate of Labour Party in the last general election Mr. Peter Obi, has narrated how a patient made him to offset bills of patients at Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu recently,

Obi who was exchanging banters with journalists at the Onitsha Correctional Centre, after he had joined the Catholic Archbishop of Onitsha, Most Rev. Dr. Valerian Okeke to celebrate Christmas mass with the inmates of the Centre had told them how a patient made him to pay hospital bills for patients who have recovered but could not go because they could not pay their medical bills.

The former Governor of Anambra State said he had gone to see family friend whose one of them was admitted in the hospital and had made a budget of about a million naira to give the family.

But on arrival at the hospital he saw many whose hospital bills had not been paid apparently because their family could not afford to do that.

While addressing them Obi said he told the patients that he would return back to pay off the bills but one of the patients Obi described as ” a genius” who he said memorized Bible from Genesis to revelation compelled him to change his mind.

He said the patient quoted copiously from the Old Testament to New Testament, arguing that each time God had
an encounter with human, solutions to their problems were not postponed but solved immediately.

The patient said Jesus did not postpone meeting the needs of those who brought their problems to him, saying God had brought him to meet their needs by offsetting their medical bills, so he would not go until he did that

Having caught him off guard, Obi said, he was compelled to settle the bills and the patients were let off the hook by the management of the Hospital.

He however, did not mention the number of the patients who benefitted and the amount involved.

He had earlier donated five hundred naira and a bottle of malt to each of the inmates at the Onitsha Correctional Centre as well as some bags of rice to support variety of items including cooked rice and meat the Archbishop brought for the inmates.