A US-based medical practitioner, Dr Titus Okunlola, on Sunday, donated a new Ultrasound machine to the former Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, now a maternal and child support facility in Malumfashi, Katsina State.
The donation, which was meant to appreciate the facility for saving his life in 1978 as a student, was presented by his childhood friend, Alhaji Tijjani Muhammed-Aminu.
Muhammed-Aminu recalled that Okunlola, an indigene of Osun, who was a student of the Government Secondary School, Musawa in Katsina State in 1978, took ill and also died.
He recounted, “He had meningitis that came with high fever, vomiting, neck stiffness, severe and excruciating headache for few days and was rushed unconscious to the then nearby available hospital in Malumfashi for treatment, and he eventually survived.
“He only came to realise how he was close to dying when he got to medical school at the University. Let me quickly add that this is the beginning of our relationship because to whom much is given, it is sensible to say that much is expected from him.
“This hospital gave him back his life when he was unconscious and literarily far gone for days, but the good people of this hospital in those days, nursed him back to health.”
Muhammed-Aminu explained that on completion of the doctor’s secondary school education at Musawa, he left for Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and later worked as a doctor for some years in Lagos before proceeding to America.
He added that the movement made him lose contact with the school and Malumfashi, but through social media, he was able to contact some of his schoolmates who remembered when he was ill and told him that the hospital still exists.
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Abdukazeez Shehu, appreciated the medical doctor for giving back to the community.
He also promised to put the machine for the good use of the hospital and the community in general.
The CMD prayed that God should reward him abundantly while calling on other Nigerians to emulate the good gesture of Titus.
Also speaking, Alhaji Yakubu Wada, a representative of the Malumfashi community, appreciated the donation.
(NAN)