For how long will our health system remain unequipped and sick?

For how long will our health system remain unequipped and sick? 



An Epilogue to the Book: Know Cancer, Conquer Cancer

by:

Lanre Jacob

From our Foundation’s interaction with the Public Healthcare system, through our cancer awareness program across Nigeria, we found a conspicuous absence of Oncological services, especially at the Primary Healthcare level.

This gap is not only risky, it has also made it difficult for policy makers to realize and frontally challenge the devastating effect of cancer in the country. The few cancer facilities that are capable of cancer diagnosis and treatment are usually not available at the Primary Healthcare level and are therefore inaccessible to the urban and the rural poor populations.

This lack of access to oncology services by most patients at grassroots has consequently brought Nigeria under the captivity of cancer with little or nothing being done by both governments and global agencies to tackle the low survival rate of cancer in the country.

The World Health Organization estimates that annually in Nigeria, out of every 100,000 people that have cancer, 80,000 die of the disease – which is 4 in 5! And we appear to be so comfortable with such perilous statistics?

As it is, the health condition of the Nigerian hospitals appears to be worse than that of the patients that attend them. A Study of a 2015 report on Radiation and oncology services available in Nigeria revealed that there were 5 Linear Machines and 3 Cobalt-60 Machines with only four of them functional. The population of Nigerians served by a megavoltage cancer therapy machine is over 33 million. In a population of about 200 million, there were just 30 radiation oncologists, 8 medical physicists, 18 Radiotherapy Technologists and 28 oncology nurses. These facilities and personnel were found in few private hospitals and in some public tertiary health centers. While the situation has not improved at all, thousands of patients still queue for six months or above to go through a course of radiotherapy service. Majority die in the process.

Do Nigerians not deserve a better healthcare system than this sick one we have today?  

For how long will a nation refuse to show empathy towards her poor and the sick – for how long do we want to remain a callous nation? How can a nation who refuses to think about and care for her poor and sick expect to prosper and attain greatness?

Again, for how long will our healthcare facilities remain unequipped and sick?

Value for Life
It is time for government at all levels to wake up. The first job of true leadership in Nigeria is not security. It is national re-orientation towards placing value on life. The first thing that God did after he formed man with clay was not to protect the clay that he formed, but to give life to it. Beyond adequate funding for Institutions, agencies, departments in charge of disease control, we all must come to the place of understanding the value of every single life, poor or rich.

To this end, cancer care services must be brought to the primary healthcare level, where screening and treatment facilities are made available. I believe it is possible that every Local Government in Nigeria can have a well-equipped cancer diagnostic center. It is possible for every state in Nigeria to have a functional comprehensive cancer care center! Yeah; God has given us all the resources we need.

Time for Knowledge, Unanimity
It is clear that the greatest weapon cancer uses is ignorance. Should we expect to fight and conquer cancer, when all we do is fight separately and in ignorance? Is it not the time to come together against cancer and other diseases in this country?

When a citizen is in bondage of cancer or any form of disease, shouldn’t we understand that the progress of every other person and that of the larger society are also under arrest? When a tree is sick, what man can see, pluck and eat of its fruits? The richest man on earth cannot fight the cancer battle alone; talk less of a poor fellow down with cancer!

For instance, I was alone with my poor farmer – parents for 30 years in cancer den, with help from no quarter. I survived by the mercy of God, but where are the rest victims? If for instance I had also died in the process, who would have known I ever existed, except my immediate family?

Except we all come to the place of unity, to the point where charity drives public resources towards helping every citizen to live healthy life and gain full expression in regard to purpose for living, cancer and other diseases will continue to prevail and kill majority of its victims, not only among the poor, but also within the ranks of the rich and mighty.

It is time to heal up our healthcare system through adequate equipping, thereby taking it to the next purposeful level. No one is safe until we all resolve to be fair to one another. Cancer or any other disease, we must fight together to conquer together. 

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