The establishment of stroke centre is an indication that the government and private healthcare providers can collaborate to provide quality and accessible healthcare to the people, SAMUEL OYEJOLA writes.
Chief Charles Obinna works at the National Assembly as a political adviser to a prominent principal officer in the House of Representatives. His assignment entails meeting with various interest groups in the bid to offer his principal quality advice on legislative matters. Ultimately, Obinna’s task is to ensure that his benefactor remains relevant in the corridors of power.
One day, he developed a strange weakness in his body system. This eventually resulted in his inability to control the right side of his body. He had developed stroke. For over a year he battled this condition both in Nigeria and in the United States.
Due to prompt medical attention, he survived, hale and hearty to narrate his experience. Obiora’s experience is a story of a man who went through the valley of death and conquered. A journey that most Nigerians do not return from.
With the threat of Ebola virus in West Africa and the huge amount of money expended to combat the virus in the face of global attention, it is a surprise the continent is besieged by stroke, a non-communicable disease (NCD) with an epidemic strength which is perhaps more lethal.
Due to its nature and subtle occupation, the sickness is a silent destroyer and could get worse if the healthcare system is uncoordinated.
Stroke is simply a brain attack due to its damage to the brain than to the heart (heart attack) as it is widely construed. In Nigeria and Africa in general, it is attached with a spiritual and diabolical manipulation on the victim rather than sickness which could be treated in a healthcare centre with specialized healthcare providers.
Broadly, stroke is of two types, the commonest in the country affecting about two-thirds of the affected population is cerebral infraction in which blood vessels are blocked. The brain receiving that blood dies out of inadequate oxygen and food, and the victim ends up with an area of the brain severely damaged.
“That is, as twice as many that will have their stroke in Europe. That is about seven people in Nigeria die every hour as a result of stroke.
Ironically, stroke is a lot cheaper to treat than otherwise. Developing a centre specialized for the treatment of stroke will provide the country a unique opportunity to show the rest of region that stroke is a treatable. This was the backdrop for the establishment of Stephen James Stroke Centre of Excellence in Abuja.
The centre is envisioned as a state of the art facility in the country, leading in research, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of stroke patients and related health conditions.
The Stephen James Stroke Centre of Excellence, a subsidiary of Stephen James Healthcare Limited in conjunction with SURE-P, recently organized an international lecture in Abuja with the theme: “A Containable Epidemic: Developing Stroke Care In Nigeria.”
The lecture was to create awareness on the disease in the country and the need to be aware of its lethal capability to the human and economic development of the country.
One of the problems of stroke care in Nigeria with a population of 173 million is that of the quality of the data available about the incidence of stroke, the number of people living with the disease and the quality of care provided for the people which is grossly limited. There are probably 160,000 cases of stroke every year (18 per hour). This would continue and increase as time goes by. This is according to Professor Tony Rudd, the National Clinical Director of Stroke with National Health Service (NHS) , England, and the guest lecturer at the event.
Rudd is of the view that of all those people living with stroke, about 40% would die within the first month.
“That is, as twice as many that will have their stroke in Europe. That is about seven people in Nigeria die every hour as a result of stroke. That is something we have to urgently do something about. If you survive your stroke, 60% of people will have long term significant disability. And even though people who appear to make a real good recovery, will end up with some psychological or physical scaring. Nobody has a stroke without being left with some problems,” he said.
Nigeria needs a properly coordinated healthcare system in order to deliver. There must be coordinated programme to ensure prevention of the disease, rapid detection of it to its urgent treatment and the provision of rehabilitation and the provision of secondary prevention i.e. the prevention to ensure that people do not get a second event
The treatment needs to give people the confidence to get back to living their life to the full. Nigeria needs a properly coordinated system in order to be able to deliver these things.
In Nigeria, the common causes are hypertension, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, cigarette smoking, HIV infection and sickle cell disease. All these could be prevented. The country needs specialist centres with expertise, developed models that can be used and raised. Public awareness on prevention is the right way to prevent the prevalence of the disease. Public and private health centre should also set up stroke care unit to focus on the care.
While government should put in the right public health policies, guidelines should be developed for the management of stroke. A national stroke strategy put together to decide how to develop stroke care in the next ten years will also go a long way. Also better quality data would indicate the level of care and impact on the various strategies employed.
The Chairman of the centre, Professor Jerry Gana, said that working together with government agencies would ensure that the bold step needed to conquer the escalating disease in the country and reduce its miserable effect on Nigerians.
The supervising Minster of Health, Khaliru Alhassan, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan, said to ensure that quality healthcare is dispensed health workers need to change their attitude to work and foster intra professional harmony in the health sector. He said Nigeria health professionals are one of the higher paid health workers in the region.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre, Prof. Reuben Obaro, said the centre stems out of the general understanding that the healthcare system in the country is lacking in so many respects and there are areas that should be tackled effectively. He said it is for people who do not have the no-how and what to do about the disease.
To sustain the centre and result, he said that the centre would focus on capacity building in the system to ensure that the young ones trained would continue to carry on the work. He said the centre will not settle for the substandard in human resources.
“We are going to build capacity in the system. A Nigerian’s life is as good as an English man’s life. The standard we are setting will be standard as we are used to where we have been working for the past thirty-five years,’’ he said.