Ankaase (Ash), Aug. 15, GNA - A visiting American volunteer group, comprising students, lecturers and professors from Lansing Community Medical College in Michigan, have paid the health insurance premiums of about 286 needy people at Ankaase in the Kwabre District of Ashanti.

The gesture, which is part of a process for the group to adopt the farming community, followed an earlier medical screening after, which it was observed that a large number of the people, who are poor, could not access free medical care as a result of their inability to pay their premiums.

Professor Leslie Hoover, leader of the group, who was speaking at a farewell durbar organised by the chiefs and people in honour of the visitors at the end of an eight-day visit, said their visit and subsequent assistance was facilitated by one Dr Isaac Addai, native of the town and lecturer of sociology at the Lansing Medical College in the United States.

He said the volunteers had during their stay screened the teeth of about 530 children out of which seven were identified to have severe problems needing immediate dental surgery and had therefore been referred to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital(KATH).

Prof Hoover said the trip, which was the second in the series of more subsequent ones, aimed at not only assisting the local community but on the other hand, expose the medical students to global awareness, cultural differences apart from enabling them to broaden their horizon. Dr Addai, who is also part of the team, thanked the group for their support, which had gone a long way to relieve his people from financial burden.