To commemorate this year’s Pan-African Women’s Day and in line with the global theme which addresses maternal and neonatal mortality in Africa, the female staff of Jumia Nigeria have rallied support for new mothers and other patients who couldn’t meet the discharge requirement as a result of unpaid medical bills at the Ikorodu general hospital by helping them to offset their outstanding bills.

As a result, the patients have now been discharged and equipped with financial support to cater for the new babies. The contributions were channelled through the ‘Visit A Hospital Today’ non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Lagos.

The African Women’s Day, created by the African Union is commemorated on July 31st of every year to advocate for quality maternity services for disadvantaged women who continue to die needlessly in underserved communities and to curb poor quality of health services, poor accessibility and weak referral systems for African women.

Jumia’s public relations and communications manager, Mr Olukayode Kolawole who described the financial intervention on behalf of the new mothers as kind and thoughtful, said: “When I heard about the plight of these new mothers and other patients who couldn’t meet the hospital discharge requirement because of their outstanding medical bills, I sought for support from our female staff, especially those who are mothers to contribute towards raising the sum. This collective effort towards helping other women in need through their financial resources reached far beyond what we set out to raise. Now, these women have been discharged and the babies are receiving the needed motherly affection.”

Founder of Visit-A-Hospital NGO, Miss Aderonke Rene Ahmed said hundreds of new mothers and women are always stuck in most hospitals because of lack of funds to pay for their medical bills. “Every week, we’re always in different hospitals providing financial support for these patients. We thank the wonderful women at Jumia Nigeria for sponsoring this month’s hospital visit.” Until now, these new mothers had been stuck at the general hospital with their babies for a few weeks because they couldn’t pay their medical bills. “Jumia’s intervention provided succour for them in the nick of time,” she added.