THE Chief Medical Director, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital (OAUTH) Complex, Ile –Ife, Professor Olusanya Adejuyigbe has said despite competency of such hospitals like OAUTH in kidney transplantation, limited access to donor kidney was still a major reason many people still travel abroad for treatment.

Professor Adejuyigbe, who spoke with health editors at the hospital, stated that in other countries of the world like India, it was possible to access commercial organ donor.

According to him, “if it is easy to get organs to transplant, I can say we can do as many kidney transplants as needed, but that has been a limitation. Our experience at OAUTH complex is that getting willing donors has been a great limiting step in ensuring those who need the service can benefit from our skills.”

Professor Adejuyigbe, who remarked that most people that had kidney transplantation using commercial donor organs end up with complications because of the high amounts of immunosuppressive medicines they must take daily, said access to good kidneys could only improve with change in attitude of people to donation of organs and probably the assent to the National health bill by President Good luck Jonathan.

The pediatric surgeon, who stated that the hospital had recorded many successes in various aspects of medicine such as treatment of gynecological cancers, cardiac medicine and laparoscopic surgery, said the hospital’s open heart surgery is to commence shortly.

The don, who expressed concern on  the increasing cases of non-communicable diseases such as heart problem and diabetes, stated “the infrastructure for open surgery as well as the required man power to aaacheive this in the hospital was ready. We are just screening the patients with  heart defects now.”

Professor Adejuyigbe assured of the hospital’s patient-friendliness and low waiting time in seeing a doctor, saying the hospital’s revolving fund programme ensured continuity of all its services and prevent out-of-drug syndrome as well as ensured that its patients were appropriately billed.

According to him, “our services are sort of decentralised so that too many people do not have to congregate in one area. For instance, we have started patient rescheduling at our general outpatient clinic as well as the antenatal clinic. So a patient does not have to come into the hospital at 7am only to be seen by the doctor at 2 pm. Of course, the aim is to ensure the hospital is more patient-friendly as well as reduce patient’s crowding at a particular point.”

The OAUTH chief medical director, who disclosed that the hospital’s new facilities and equipment by VAMED Engineering Limited were soon to be commissioned, expressed concern on the state of tertiary healthcare delivery in the country.

Professor Adejuyigbe, declaring that the problem of tertiary healthcare delivery could not be divorced from that of the general health care delivery system, called for a review of Nigeria’s health system as well as its financing.

According to him, “a lot of burden is brought to bear on Federal tertiary institutions. If a teaching hospital is the only one functioning in a neighborhood, you cannot pick and choose which patients to attend to and so the basis of my saying that the problem is derived from the general health care delivery system.”

Professor Adejuyigbe argued that the healthcare delivery at the local government level be enabled and made functional.

According to him, “they are not carrying out school health programme and public sanitation is abysmal but if they are given appropriate tools and the law mandates them to provide these and appropriate sanction are brought to bear on erring officials, then this would be the right step in the right direction.”

Comments (0)

Show/hide comments

Show/hide comment form

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment