President of the Senate, Senator David Mark yesterday praised former Super Eagles Skipper Kanu Nwankwo for sustaining the ‘Kanu Heart Foundation project helping to address cases of heart related diseases for the needy in Nigeria.
Senator Mark said when he played host the founder and coordinators of Kanu Heart Foundation in his office in Abuja that the former Nigerian Captain is giving back to the society and being a role model to the younger generation.
The founder and coordinators were in his office to brief him on the proposed launching of a N5Billion naira Cardiac Hospital in Abuja targeted to address the increasing cases of heart related diseases especially amongst children.
According to Mark:” this is a commendable effort by an individual. God will bless you and give you the strength and wisdom to do more. Having the heart to give to the people especially the needy, your efforts would be rewarded by the Almighty God.
“We share in this dream, we identify with it and we shall do all we can to support you so that this project would be a dream come through”.
He said the Senate on its part would within the limits of available resources support the project so that millions of our people who cannot afford medical attention abroad would be saved.
Earlier, the Coordinator of the project, Onyebuchi Abia told the President of the Senate that the N5Billion Naira project would be launched in Abuja on March 14, 2013 and solicited for support towards it.
He said a total of 452 Nigerian Children have so far had open surgery abroad on account of the foundation in the last 12 years saying that cost would be reduced and more lives saved if the Cardiac hospital is built in Nigeria.
When completed, the hospital would render free heart surgery services to children from ages 1–12 while patents above 12 years of age would be subsidized.
It will be recalled that Kanu Nwankwo was diagnosed of heart problem shortly after he led Nigeria under 23 soccer team to victory in Atlanta, United States of America in 1996 Olympic games.
