Seventeen (17) physically challenged persons who could neither stand nor walk on their own,  now have the opportunity to freely move around with the help of prosthetic limbs fitted courtesy of staff of Access Bank (Ghana) Limited.

The beneficiaries were fitted with customised artificial limbs by the National Prosthetics and Orthotics Centre (NPOC) over a four week period and trained to exercise their new body parts before their discharge from the centre.

The latest humanitarian initiative forms part of Access Bank’s Employee Volunteering Program which allows staff to invest their time, skills and financial resources in meaningful projects within communities where the Bank operates.

Addressing the Group and members of the Centre during a short ceremony to climax the 4-week project, Dr. Thompson, Head of Prosthetics at the Centre expressed profound appreciation to staff of Access Bank for their sponsorship.

“The centre for a very long time has supported the whole country with very little resource in terms of human capital and other logistics needed to bring relief to patients. This gesture is very heart warming and we ask other stakeholders to join hands to ensure that people with disabilities are catered for in the community”, he urged.

The Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Ebenezer Appiah Denkyira who was the special guest at the event, noted that until recently, the National Prosthetic and Orthotics Centre used wood to generate limbs, making them rather difficult to use. But with the help of prosthetics, more refined limbs can now be manufactured within two days.

He said "the intervention by Access Bank is helping to alleviate the hospital’s financial and logistical constraints" and called on other public spirited organisations and individuals  to support what he called the "laudable initiative to improve the health care delivery system in Ghana”

The Executive Director for Operations and IT in Access Bank, Kameel Adebayo, who is also a member of the staff volunteering group, was excited by the outcome of their intervention, said “the smiles on the patients’ faces as they try out their limbs is priceless and we are proud to be a part of this great cause”.

The Project Director, Kennedy Effah explained the decision to take up this project stemmed from a firm belief that physically challenged persons deserve all the support they can get in order to live their lives with dignity and make meaningful contributions to society. 

Access Bank staff, every year, come up with various social intervention programmes as their contribution to society for sustainable impact to improve living conditions in the areas of health, education as well as the arts.