… As medical expert launches non-clinical support in PH
Nigerian families are said to be bearing secret burden of over N250bn per month on medical treatment of people living with sickle cell disease (PLWSCD).
This is derived from a minimum of N25,000 needed for medicare of one patient.
According to an expert who has opened an annual camp for PLWSCD in Port Harcourt, the cost gets outrageously bigger when cost of complications and special treatments get into the calculations. It gets to about N500,000 for certain treatments for a patient.
Nigeria has been declared the epicentre pf sickle cell disease where about 3% of the populace (220m) is down with the sickness while those with traces are up to 25%, with 150,000 newborns affected annually.
Read also: Diasporans scramble for Nigeria’s sickle cell cure
Many countries including Canada have devised strategic ways of curtailing or reducing the spread and pains of the disease but Nigeria is said to be looking at the situation without any drastic actions.
For that reason, a Nigerian female doctor and expert with advanced training in Canada has set up some remedial actions.
Chioma Okechukwu, a consultant pediatrician, self-specialised in pediatric haematology and oncology has set up what she calls the Camp Chizi, saying the name honours a patient that lived and fought the situation to the age of 37 with huge success.
The camp runs like what she saw in Canada where the PLWSCD are fed well and detected very early at birth for remedial actions to begin.
Okechukwu, a medical expert at the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH) formerly Braithewaite Memorial Hospital in Port Harcourt, told newsmen at Dietams International School in Trans-Amadi, where the Camp Chizi is going on that the persons living with sickle cell disease (PLWSCD) were responding speedily and positively after interactions and supports.
She said over 20 volunteers were on hand to support the over 60 inmates learning about their condition and how to help themselves.
She called on state governments to support Sickle Cell camps and treatments, saying couples about to marry must carry out at least three separate genotype tests in different locations to confirm, saying poor tests have resulted to many sickle cell children from ignorant parents or persons with one test.
She said there are tests right at birth to screen babies and if detected, treatment starts immediately. “Those detected early and treated would grow very tall and live better,” she stated.
“In Haematology we take care of children with sickle cell disease so I’m a sub specialist in sickle cell disease care”, she added.
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