MTN Foundation has invested 28.2 billion naira in intervention projects over twenty years of its operation.
The Executive Director of MTN Foundation, Mrs. Odunayo Sanya, made this known during the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) ceremony as the foundation partnered with the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PSHAN) to provide and equip fifty Primary Health Care (PHC) centres across the country.
Sanya noted that the intervention projects have touched 180 Primary Health Care centres and added that the partnership would further increase the quality of the PHCs and provide affordable and sustainable healthcare to the citizens of the country.
Sanya stated at the signing ceremony held in Lagos that a total number of intervention initiatives of 180 PHCs from the 774 local government areas in Nigeria had been remodeled and equipped for use, with feedback on the impact given. The monitoring and evaluation unit of the foundation has ensured its sustainability.
Odunayo added that forty PHCs had been delivered under the MTN ‘What Can We Do Together’ (WCWDT) and Emergency Relief Clean-Up Projects, and twelve more under the PSHAN Adopt-a-Healthcare-Facility Program (ADHFP), summing up to fifty-two PHC interventions. She noted that each PHC had received medical supplies, consumables, and alternative power supply.
Some of the PHCs were located in Kogi, Jigawa, Bayelsa, Rivers, Anambra, with the ultimate plan of ensuring a PHC in each LGA receives the intervention of the foundation.
She noted that the foundation, which was created twenty years ago, had invested twenty-eight billion naira in intervention projects over the years, and now with the synergy of PSHAN, more women, children, and persons in their locality would benefit from quality healthcare.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of PSHAN, Dr. Tinuola Akinbolagbe, stated that the partnership would impact the maternal mortality rate and provide healthcare at the first stage, the PHCs, with the intervention reaching two hundred more communities by June 2024. She noted that the sustainability of the primary healthcare centre was considered with the training of medical staff and engagement with the residents of the locality who would enjoy the facilities.
The Chairman of MTN Foundation, Dr Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi noted that the partnership works to make medicine and health care accessible, affordable and available to Nigerians as the foundation was autonomous and plans to reach the 774 local government areas of the nation with affordable health care facilities .
